All Stacked Up QuiltAlong: Week 2 – Piece the Blocks

Hello!  And welcome to the second week of our super fast and fun new quiltalong: All Stacked Up.

This week is all about piecing the fun All Stacked Up quilt block. By now you should have your fabrics selected and precut according to pages 1 -2 in the All Stacked Up pattern. You should also have a fairly good idea about which fabrics will be paired together. If you are just joining us this week, please refer back to Week #1’s All Stacked Up QAL blog Post right here.

COMPANION VIDEO –
Each week of the quiltalong, I always post a companion video and this week is no exception….If you’d like to view this week’s companion video to Week #2 of the All Stacked Up QAL, view it here:

Set Your Machine Up for Success —
Before we start the piecing fun, I always think it a good idea to set your sewing machine up for stitching success.

Here are few things I always do when starting a new project that requires precision piecing:
• Lift the stitchplate and clean out all of those dust bunnies;
• Change the needle to a new needle – I prefer the Schmetz 75/11 Quilting Needles for precision piecing;
• Thread your machine with a neutral colored 100% cotton , 50 weight thread – my go-to color and thread is #2615 from Aurifil Thread;

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• And most importantly, have a good idea of how to stitch a scant 1/4″ seam…

What’s a Scant 1/4″ Seam You Say?? —
A scant 1/4″ seam is a hair less than a full 1/4″ seam.

Many machine manufactuers 1/4″ presser feet are FULL 1/4″ seams . In order to sew accurate 1/4″ seams and have our precision pieced blocks turn out to exactly the finished size they need to, we need to stitch scant 1/4″ seams.

If you’ve ever been frustrated by achieving the perfect seam allowance for quilting then I think I have the perfect little tool for you….it’s the Perkins Perfect Piecing Seam Guide and it works like a dream.

Available at most quilt shops and through Amazon, this little ruler is genius! It is quite simple – it has a hole in the middle and a line that runs end to end of the ruler and through the middle of the hole. The line designates a scant 1/4″ seam allowance.

You place the ruler under your presser foot, drop your needle down into the hole and lower your presser foot on to the ruler. You can now clearly see where you need to line up the fabric edge of your units to achieve a scant 1/4″ seam. Look closely!! – more than likely, it will not be lined up with the edge of your 1/4″ presser foot, but rather just under the edge of the foot and a little bit to the left. Once you study this, you can run a piece of painter’s tape or washi tape along the edge of the Perkins Piecing Guide to mark the stitch plate of your machine for scant 1/4″ precision perfect seam piecing! You are ready to go !

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Just a Final Thought on Fabric Pairings —
I know the All Stacked Up pattern says that once you pair fabrics together, they should remain paired together through block piecing, etc….etc…etc…

But really, do they?? Once all of your fabrics are precut and paired up, you do have one final opportunity before piecing to mix up or revise your fabric pairings.

Here’s an example: my first pairing for these fabrics was mixing the green (Fabric A) with the yellow (Fabric B).

But after looking at all of my fabrics, I decided I wanted to mix up the pairings. Now I know from reading the pattern on page 3, that I need (X) amount of units in Fabric A paired with (X) amount of units in Fabric B to make (3) identical blocks. So looking at the pairing on the right side if I wanted to trade out my smaller green Fabric A units for let’s say some smaller lime green Fabric A units, I could! I can mix and match all day – as long as I have the total units for Fabric A and the total units for Fabric B paired in each grouping as specified on page 3 of the pattern.

Let’s take another look at fabric pairings…..here are my first pairings. You can see I’ve got magenta with yellow, green with orange, blue with salmon and so on….

After I precut my fabrics, I revised some of my combinations to create a more color wheel order for the quilt blocks and ended up with these fabric pairings that I like a lot better. In the end, none of my original pairs stayed together and in fact each pair is a completely different combination of fabrics than the other.

So yes, before you start piecing, take a moment to review your fabric pairings ….if you want to switch fabrics from pairing to pairing, heck yes – go ahead ! Just double check that you have the total units needed in the final pairings to make 3 identical blocks.

Piecing the Block —
Referring to the directions in the All Stacked Up pattern on pages 3-4, start by making half square triangles. Add (2) Background Fabric squares to each fabric pairing. Place the square Background Fabrics with the square Fabric A units and make Half Square Triangles – (4) squares in will yield (4) half square triangles out.

Use your square ruler and line up the diagonal line of the ruler on top of the diagonal line of the half square triangle unit to trim and square down each square to the appropriate size.

Discard (1) of the units as you will only need (3) half square triangles for the project.

Piecing the block couldn’t be more simple and chain piecing the (3) individual blocks makes this step go even faster! So go forth and piece all of your fabric pairing to create (3) identical blocks from each fabric pairing following the instructions on pages 3-4 in the All Stacked Up pattern!

That is it for Week #2! I’ll be back next week for Week #3 – our final week- where we’ll be piecing the quilt top together!

Thank you for following along and until then, happy colouricious quilting! L&C xxoo

Let’s Talk Moody….

This week, we are so proud and excited to announce that one of our quilt designs and the pattern, “Moody” is featured in the new issue of July/August Modern Patchwork magazine. It’s always a thrill to see yourself and a quilt you’ve designed in print!  This issue is just hitting newsstands and is available for purchase here.

I also think it’s always interesting to hear about a ‘pattern’s history” – some patterns work right away and some like this one need to wait for the right fabrics to come along to make it “sing” (our term for when the design and fabrics work splendidly together – when they do, the quilt begins to “sing”…..tra-la-la-la)

This particular pattern was designed several months ago by Carl using the quilt software EQ7 (or Electric Quilt version 7).  It’s original design was in a hot, modern palette and all the blocks were intended to be appliqued over the super large 4-patch background. It’s also been a test quilt to audition other fabrics with large scale florals, etc… but the colors or combinations never quite “sang”.

At least not until Tula came along….

Last year, Tula Pink released her version of modern solids to coordinate perfectly with her other Tula Pink fabric collections, available from Free Spirit Fabrics.   I love the range and depth of her solids collection…it’s certainly not a traditional color wheel rainbow of solids, but imho, there’s just something a little more sophisticated, classy  and different with these colors….And of course, different means it’s a challenge and I like that!   These solids are now a stable at Free Spirit Fabrics and readily available at your local quilt shops and online.

So when we eyed  Tula’s solid collection, we immediately thought that our “Moody” quilt that had been waiting in the wings, had finally found a partner – yup -you guessed it – they made beautiful music and the quilt sang!


We submitted the design to Modern Patchwork magazine and they accepted it!  However, before we submitted it,  we made one major change to the construction – it’s all pieced.  We thought the pieced construction would 1) definitely be more challenging for the sewist and 2) evoked more of a modern feel to the overall quilt….

Figuring, checking and double checking the pieced dimensions and arithmetic was a bit of challenge, but after a few test blocks all was great! The quilt construction really goes together quite quickly!

Once the quilt top was complete using Aurifil 5o weight thread (of course) – our good buddy, Teresa at Quilting is my Bliss did an amazing job machine quilting with the grecian keys design.  All in all, I think the quilt came out gorgeous and definitely evokes an air of sophistication and of course ‘moodiness’ as the colored blocks seems to change  personality when they cross the dark and light backgrounds.

The pattern is indeed available in the current issue of Modern Patchwork now on sale.  And kudos to the editors as well – if you like the Tula Pink solids I used and want to duplicate it exactly color for color,  you’ll find the exact fabrics called out by color name on the materials list in the magazine – a nice added touch by the editors – :-  Thank you Modern Patchwork….

Until your next colour fix~  Linda & Carl

 

 

Mystic Gold

Fall Quilt Market is quickly approaching and guess what? – we are finally catching up with this blog post about quilts we designed for the Spring Quilt Market in St. Louis!  Oh my – how time does fly!

Fabric designer and artist, Anna Marie Horner, debuted her gorgeous new fabric collection called “Floral Retrospective” at the Spring Quilt Market – which is now out in stores  – and we were fortunate enough to be asked by Free Spirit Fabrics to design a quilt for their booth using her new fabrics.   Introducing Mystic Gold!

When Carl designed this pattern in EQ7 (Electric Quilt 7 software), he wanted to accentuate the rings moving outward from center (as if a pebble had been dropped in a calm pool of water) and give the quilt that almost mystical  “vibrating” or “zingey” look (think of hitting a gong) – hence the pointed tips around each curve.

And what looks to be complicated curved piecing –  really isn’t!  Here’s how we did it:

1.   A simple half squared triangle block is created first;
2. ….then we added the corner triangles;
3. …then we created the petal applique by sewing the lightest weight fusible interfacing right sides together with the fabric petal, slitting the center and turning the unit right side out;
4. …lastly, we fused the petal to the center seam line, topstitched the edges  and voila! – it looks like some serious curved piecing occurred when in fact, it was super easy!

Topstitching was super simple using my #10 Edgestitch Presser Foot (a must for this type of job!) and a matching 40wt Aurifil thread. Perfect every time!  If you’ve ever made an orange peel block, then this is very similar if not the same method indeed!

 

Teresa, from Quilting at my Bliss, did some awesome custom machine quilting.  The free motion feathers across each petal were to die for and her custom quilting in between was equally gorgeous. (click on the pictures to enlarge).

By the way, Teresa has a new book launching in October, called the “Longarm Quilting Workbook”.  It’s filled with great tips on basic skills, techniques and motifs to help get you started  longarm quilting – so if you’ve just purchased a longarm or are considering buying one – this would be a great book to consider adding to your reference library.  And of course, if you’re just looking for some new and fun ideas on how to quilt something – there’s lots and lots and lots of eye candy!  Of course, you can buy directly from Teresa and have her autograph it too!

All in all, this one was super fun quilt to design and create,  and we were so honored that Free Spirit chose this one to hang in their booth at Spring Quilt Market.

If you like this design, it is now available as a free download on the their website – here’s the link!

Until your next colour fix~
Linda & Carl

 

 

The “Tattooed” Mini Spikey & ModDog

Early February,  we had the honor of creating a mini version of our “Spikey” quilt for our friends over at Andover Fabrics using Canadian artist and fabric designer, Libs Elliott’s,  newest collection called “Tattooed”.  The quilts commissioned were to be hung in the Andover Booth at the QuiltCon East Convention that took place in Savannah, GA.  We were beyond excited and thrilled to meet the challenge.

“Tattooed” fabric is just starting to hit your local quilt shops, and if you haven’t seen it yet – go check it out….It is a gorgeous collection of richly saturated jewel toned prints and makes the most perfect rainbow quilt or added to your stash is a great basic. You can also check out more of Libs Elliott’s quilts and her designs at her website …..her work is really innovative and fabulous as she uses computer code to create her designs.

Back to the mini “Spikey” – first I needed to arrange the “Tattooed” fabrics in my preferred color order.  Additionally, because we had a size requirement, I needed to reduce the Spikey triangle template to 3″ in length (instead of the original 8″ length).  These were going to be some tiny triangles!  The background and borders were cut from Andover fabrics Chambray collection – this is a beautiful woven fabric that creates texture, depth and movement to the background.  Love it and I absolutely need more now!

I then began the task of sewing triangles together…With our Spikey pattern the key to matching the triangles up is to offset the 2 triangles by just about 1/8″ and sew a perfect (not scant) 1/4″ seam – before I set out to sew any “Spikey” quilt I always have to do several test runs until I get it just right and then I set that pair of triangles off to the side as my reference while sewing all of the others. (Click on the photos to enlarge).

Once done – the mini Spikey was ready for quilting…since I don’t consider myself the most expert machine quilter, I used a monfilament thread and simply quilted a 1/4″ away from all of the spikes and then quilted abritrary lines in and out through the outer borders….Sometimes simple is better….and Voila – done! (You can click on the photos below to enlarge 😉

So off it shipped to be placed in the Andover Fabric quilt gallery.  What a thrill to see our mini Spikey displayed with all of the other gorgeous quilts in the Andover Fabric booth at Quilt Con East….I love the eyeball pillow and the jewel quilt, don’t you? it was thrilling to see it displayed with all of the other gorgeous work.

While making the mini Spikey, we also toyed around with making an additional project from the “Tattooed” fabric  – a mini “ModDog! He, alas, did not make the cut….oh well…

But here are the results!   I first wonky slashed ‘n sewed some “Tattooed” strips together and cut out the dog body.  Then I textured the Chambray background with straight stitching lines using a collection of brightly colored 12 weight Aurifil threads – these are deliciously weighty threads and work perfectly through my Bernina sewing machine using a 90/14 size topstitch needle….no problem!  And I love the way the background looks!  Next, I appliqued around the dog with a 50 weight Aurifil thread, added a piece of gorgeous Renaissance Ribbon for a collar, and even fussy-cut  a “handmade tat”  from Libs’ previous collection “True Love” for his rear end – ha! I think he came out super cute and we’re plotting more of these in the future!

Many thanks to Giusseppe and Daryl at Andover Fabrics for the opportunity and to Libs Elliot for designing such a gorgeous collection.  And if you like our “Spikey quilt or “ModDog” pillow, you can purchase patterns for the larger versions from our Colourwerx website or a PDF download from our Colourwerx Craftsy site.

Until your next colour fix~
Linda & Carl