Welcome back! It’s Week #2 of our Wonky Piecing & Easy Appliqué QuiltAlong ! This week we’ll be creating our Wonky Piecing Strip Sets, fusing your animal shapes onto those strips sets and then cutting out the animal shapes.
If you’re just joining us this week, be sure to review Week #1’s Blog Post to find out how to purchase the pattern and what fabrics and materials you’ll need to gather –
READ WEEK #1’S POST BY CLICKING HERE
Also, just a friendly reminder! If you want to join with other quilty friends and aren’t yet a member of our Facebook group, I invite you to join our free QAL Facebook group where you can ask questions, share your progress and of course, post pictures of your finished projects so everyone can share in the fun! Also feel free to share this invite and any other QAL news with quilty buddies and invite them to join along in the fun!
JOIN THE COLOURWERX QAL FACEBOOK GROUP HERE
Let’s get started! —
I love ‘wonky piecing’! It’s liberating, easy to do and best of all you don’t need to have an exact or even perfect 1/4″ seam. First, gather your strips.
Lay out the strips near your sewing machine in a pleasing manner. This can be in whatever order you think looks good and there is no right or wrong. I’ll be making a ModCat with you while we quilt along together so here are my strips laid out on the cutting board in what looks like to me a very pleasing manner.
Follow the directions for wonky piecing in your patterns: MiniModDog – Page 1; ModCat – pages 3-4; ModFish – pages 4-5. In the pattern you’ll find fully illustrated diagrams to assist you.
But first I want to share a little trick that I like to do. I like to “audition” the wonky angle before stitching 2 strips together. Begin your wonky piecing with the two bottom strips.
Here’s what I do to “audition” the angle before stitching: I place the top strip Right Side Up on the other strip, slanting it at an angle or in the case below, slanting from top left to bottom right – this allows you to “audition” the wonky angle before stitching it.
Once satisfied with your “slant”, just flip the the top strip over on top of the bottom strip mimicking that angle so the strips are now Right Sides Together.
Next just stitch the strips together and cut away the extra fabric beyond the stitching line as per your pattern instructions.
To add the next strip, just take the third strip in sequence, place it Right Side Together slanting in the opposite direction and “audition” the angle. Looks good! Ok – Flip that strip over so the strips are now Right Sides Together mimicking the angle and stitch to the second strip.
Then just continue on until your wonky pieced strip set is large enough for your animal shape. Here are my (2) Wonky Pieced Strip Sets for my ModCat – one for the body and one for the head .
And here’s an example of what some Wonky Strip Pieced Sets might look like for a ModDog or ModFish:
Now you’re done with your Wonky Piecing and the real fun begins…fusing your animal shapes onto the wrong side of the strips sets and cutting out your animal shapes out!!
First, Rough Cut Out Your Shapes From the Fusible Web —
This step seems to confuse some people.
Simply put, it means to cut out your animal shapes from the fusible web 1/4″-1/2″ BEYOND THE DRAWN LINE NOT ON THE DRAWN LINE like so…
Next, fuse your shapes to the WRONG side of your wonky pieced strip sets. Also fuse the other shapes to the your selected fabrics at this time: for example, the dog collar, or let’s say the fish faces or cat eyelids, etc…
With a sharp pair of scissors, cut out the shapes on the drawn line – take your time here and be exact. Here’s my ModCat shapes all cut out.
Here’s what your ModDog or ModFish shapes might look like after being cut out:
Just a word on scissors — I love these Karen Kay Buckley Precision Tip scissors pictured below. These are about 5″ long, easy and comfortable to grip and are the perfect little pair of scissors for precision cutting of applique shapes of any size. There are my go-to scissors for just this kind of work and I highly recommend them!
You can purchase them at your local quilt shop or any online retailer.
Look for a little companion video on Week #2 – Wonky Piecing to be posted in a few days!
Yay! 🙂 That’s it for Week #2!! Next week – Week #3: we’ll be machine quilting up the background fabric and I’ll show you a few different ideas that you can incorporate into your quilting!!
Until then, please be sure to email us at colourwerx@yahoo.com if you have any questions. Or feel free to post progress pictures on our Colourwerx QAL Facebook Group.
Until your next colour fix and next week’s QAL post ~ happy and bright quilting always! L&C xxoo
Colourwerx 