Film in the Fridge » quilt block

dinner date block tutorial

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:16:08 +0000

So… remember this quilt? It’s still not finished, but I’ve had a number of requests for a tutorial, so I decided to put a quick one together for you today.

You might recall that I originally made my Flying Farfalle quilt using this technique, which was inspired by an image in Gwen Marston’s Liberated Quiltmaking II book. For my second quilt, I decided to change it up just a little bit, adding in a thin little strip of white to offset the bright colored points from the coal background.

I’m calling it Dinner Date because the coal background reminds me of a men’s suit with the pops of color as a fun tie.

So, to start, collect your materials…

For this quilt, I’m using Kona Coal as the background. I’ve decided to go with 6.5″ squares for this one, but you should feel free to switch it up as you’d like – rectangles, larger squares… whatever works for you! Along with your background fabric, you’ll need fabric for the points – I’m using up some of my colored solid scraps. The size doesn’t really matter, though I think it works best if you use a longer strip that’s at least 2″ wide. If you decide to include the thin white strip, you’ll also need some white fabric. My white fabric is 1″ wide.

Sew the 1″ wide white strip to the long side of your solid strip (1/4″ seams) and press. (I press my seams open, but feel free to do whatever works best for you).

I wanted my white strip to finish at 3/8″, so after sewing the white strip to the colored solid, I trimmed it back to 5/8″.

In order to sew the colored points to your solid background square, flip the colored strip over and position it along one of the corners, as shown in the photo above. (You will end up flipping the colored section back over that gray triangle after sewing your seam, so just make sure that the colored portion will adequately cover the background triangle.) I like my triangle points to be wonky, so I vary the angles when sewing the colored portion to the background fabric.

Sew along the edge of the white strip.

Repeat for the opposite corner, using another of your colored strips. Iron the points and you’ll have something that looks a little like the photo above.

And the back will look a little like this.

Using your background square as a guide, trim off the excess fabric along all sides of the square.

Since your colored fabric has now become the points of the square, you can trim off the excess background fabric that’s under the colored point. Just trim along the edge of the white fabric.

And voila! A finished block! Make several more and you can start to see the fun pattern when you put them together!

As always, let me know if there are any questions, and if you make a quilt like this one, be sure to add it to the FITF Flickr group!

another star…

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:52:15 +0000

…this one for Amanda Jean, for her quilt for Quilts of Valor. I love the look of these maverick stars, and it’s something I’ve wanted to try for quite some time. She linked to this tutorial, in case you want to try your hand at some stars. Though beware, once you start, you might not be able to stop!

quartered squares – a modified bento box block tutorial

ashley — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:00:59 +0000

As promised!

(Please keep in mind that this is just a quick little tutorial to show you how I constructed the blocks for my modified bento box quilt. There are tutorials you can purchase for the standard bento box quilt – I’ve never seen the pattern, and I really have no idea how the blocks are constructed in the pattern. I’m led to believe that this is not the same method, so I feel ok posting it here…)

The measurements provided are what I used for my quilt, but the technique would be the same if you decided to change the size of your strips, or the final size of your blocks. Using this method you’ll construct large blocks which you’ll then cut into quarters. These measurements produce a block that is 16″ square (or 15.5″ square, if you’re like me and aren’t as precise!) which is then cut into four blocks that are 8″ square (or 7.75″ in my case!) Please note that 1/4″ seam allowances are used.

All that being said, let’s get started! First off, select a bunch of fabrics you’d like to use. I probably used around 10-15 prints and about 5 solids for my version, but this is totally up to you!

Select a fabric for the center of your block and cut this to 6″ square. Then select the fabric for the second ring of the square. This fabric will be cut to 1 1/2″ wide. You need 2 pieces 1.5″ x 6″ and 2 pieces 1.5″ x 8″.

Sew the shorter strips to the opposite sides of the square. Press. (I press mine to one side, but you could certainly press your seams open if you’d rather). Repeat this process for the second set of opposing strips. Press again.

The next ring is 2″ wide, and for this ring you’ll need 2 strips that are 2″ x 8″ and 2 strips that are 2″ x 11″. Repeat the process to sew the shorter strips to opposing sides, and press. Repeat with the next set of opposing strips.

The third ring is 1.25″ wide, and for this ring you’ll need 2 strips that are 1.25″ x 11″ and 2 that are 1.25″ x 12.5″. Repeat steps from above.

The last ring is 2.25″ wide. For this one you’ll need 2 strips 2.25″ x 12.5″ and 2 that are 2.25 x 16″.

In theory, this should result in a block that is 16″ square. (this assumes that you have perfect 1/4″ seams and that your ironing skills are spot on!). In reality, my blocks always ended up just shy of 16″ square, so instead of worrying about it, I opted to trim them down to 15.5″ square. I just eyeballed it and trimmed a bit from each side, but in order to make sure everything lines up correctly, you’ll should mark the center of the block and measure out 7.75″ from the center on each side and use this as a trim line.

Once your block is square, you can simply cut it into four equal pieces. In my example, with a 15.5″ block, I measured in 7.75″ and cut the block in half and then repeated for the other side.

You’ll now have four equal blocks that are 7.75″ square. (or 8″ square if your sewing and ironing skills are better than mine!)

Repeat the process for constructing these blocks, changing up your fabrics and the placements of those fabrics and then rearrange the quarter squares into full blocks.

Sew your blocks back together, and then sew all the large blocks together into a quilt top! For the quilt I made, I made a total of 12 full blocks, which resulted in a smallish quilt, measuring about 40″ x 54″ after washing.

Enjoy! And as always, feel free to comment with any questions or if you spot any errors!

Oh, and an aside – I made this block for the tutorial, but don’t have any plans for it… if anyone’s interested in these 4 quarter blocks, leave a comment. If more than one person is interested, I’ll let random.org pick someone tomorrow!

Edited to add: The winner has been selected – Congrats to Jessica Brown!

small projects

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:24:09 +0000

A little gift for my mom for mother’s day -

A few new market bags for a local shop -

And the start of a new quilt -

Many many thanks to Julie and Joree for sending me some of the wonderful paint-by-number bird fabric. I’ve been hoarding it for a while, but now, in my attempt to actually use my favorite fabrics, I cut into them for this new quilt. I’m doing some more improv blocks and each center will feature one of the birds in one of the three colors. I really like each block individually, though I’m a bit concerned about how they’ll all work together in a quilt. We shall see!

a string quilt block tutorial – paper pieced method

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:14:20 +0000

I’m so blown away by all the wonderful comments on my string quilt, now aptly named ‘Kaleidoscope’ (many thanks to Kerri who was the first to suggest it, followed by 9 others of you who had the same thought!) I think it’s just perfect.

And now, a quick tutorial – I had a few requests for a tutorial on making this type of quilt, so I figured I’d oblige (it’s the least I can do, right?). This shows the paper piecing method, which is my preferred method.

To start, you’ll want to decide on the size of your blocks. For the Kaleidoscope quilt, my blocks were 11″ square. In this tutorial, I’m using 7″ square blocks. I use cheap copy paper, but you could use anything you have on hand – I’ve heard pages from phone books work! – just as long as it’s not a heavyweight paper.

Cut squares of your desired size from the copy paper and set aside.

Decide on your fabrics and cut strips of a variety of widths. I cut strips of 1″ – 2.5″. I like the way it looks with a variety of widths, but you could also cut strips all the same width if you’d prefer. Set these aside.

I wanted to have a small strip of white separate the squares in my quilt, so I cut 1″ strips of a solid white fabric. You could opt for any other solid color – I used green in this baby quilt, or you could use one patterned fabric to tie everything together, or you could skip it completely.

Next we’ll temporarily attach the white strips to the paper squares. With the fabric right side up, lay the strip diagonally on the block. I use a little glue from a glue stick to dab on the back of the fabric strip so it will stick to the paper. You want to make sure that each strip is centered on the diagonal so that your strips will line up with you sew the blocks together. I eyeball mine (’cause I’m lazy!) but you may want to use a ruler and draw a pencil line through the diagonal to help with placement.

Now you can start sewing on your fabric strips! The first strip should be long enough to cover the section of paper right next to the piece glued on the diagonal. You’ll lay your first strip right side down on top of the strip glued to the block.

(please ignore my wrinkly fabric! I’m not much for ironing!)

Align the edges and sew with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Very important: be sure to reduce your stitch length! This will allow you to easily remove the paper from the back later. My machine is typically set at 2.5 – I’ve found that reducing it to 1.5 works well.

Sew along this edge (right through the paper), then iron open with a dry iron. (some may want to skip the ironing, and just finger press – that’s up to you).

Repeat this process, aligning another strip to the strip you just attached, again, right sides together.

Iron open and repeat until you’ve covered the entire paper square. It will look something like this.

Now you can flip the square over so you can see the paper square on the back. Using your clear ruler and rotary cutter, trim the excess fabric, using the paper square as a guide.

And now you’ve completed your first block! I leave the paper on my blocks until I have them all completed.

Repeat for all your paper squares. Then you can arrange them as you like -

When you have your blocks completed, you’ll want to remove the paper from the back. If you’ve reduced the stitch length, the paper should appear almost perferated. I fold the paper along the stitch line and then tear away.

Sew your blocks together and admire your lovely quilt top!

Block Party blocks for Kristen

admin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:31:26 +0000

Just under the wire! Kristen gave us a little equation for this month’s blocks, which you can see here (part of it involved circles, eek!). I admit it had me stumped for quite some time. I’ve never pieced curves, so I was certainly apprehensive. So apprehensive that I avoided it in the first block.

I tried to get a curved look without actually making curves. This block is large – about 17″ square.

For the second block, I did give the curved piecing a try, with less than perfect results, as you’ll see below. I would have redone it to get a better circle, but I was afraid of running out of fabric, so I stuck with the original one. I’m hoping it’ll just add to the wonkiness (hopefully!).

This one is about 15″ square. I hope you like them Kristen!

Project Improv blocks

admin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:25:44 +0000

I’m a little late in finishing up and mailing my project improv blocks. I’m going to blame it on being away from home for a month, but more likely it’s just due to my procrastinating nature. I signed up for the red/aqua group (I think!). Recently I won a giveaway over at Valori Wells’ blog and she sent me a whole bag of great fabric scraps, many of them in perfect red and aqua prints… Thanks Valori!

You’ll see those incorporated into the red/aqua block I made. I added in just a touch of green and yellow for a little bit of extra color and interest.

And then because I had so many pink scraps out from recent projects, I did up an orange/pink block as well.

Jacquie is doing such a great job putting together the charity quilts and I can’t wait to see these blocks incorporated into one of those quilts. Take a look here to see some of the lovely tops that have already been completed. Thanks for all your hard work Jacquie!

p.s. I’ve been really enjoying your comments recently. Sometimes I laugh out loud, and at those times I’m glad that there’s no one near me who might find that behavior kind of crazy! Several of you have asked questions also, and as much as I’d like to answer them all personally, I realize that I’m just not that organized. I think I’m going to blame it on gmail – so many of those comments that I know I want to answer seem to get lost in my inbox (I’m sure there’s a better way of organizing my email… just haven’t figured it out yet!). In any case, this is to let you know that I’ll try to answer all comments in the comment section of that post, so if you’ve asked one, please check there for the answer!

Patchwork potholders

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:58:22 +0000

Not a quilt this time, but quilty nonetheless!

We’ve been using some very old potholders for a long time now. In reality, they were never meant to be potholders. They were actually used as examples of quilts you could order from a local store. While they did have batting between two pieces of fabric, they really weren’t very useful as potholders – thin batting led to hot hands when pulling something out of the oven!

In any case, I’m not sure why it took me so long to make new ones. For these I continued with the rainbow hues and pulled several fabrics of one color for each potholder. I made quick log cabin blocks for each front, a piece of corresponding fabric for the backing and whatever leftover fabric for binding.

This was a good project for using up fabric scraps, and also a great way to use up my leftover batting. Each time I make a quilt I’m left with strips of batting – not large enough for another quilt, but large enough that I don’t feel I can throw it away. I used two layers of batting for each potholder and did some simple straight quilting on each.

And I’m pleased to report… no burnt hands!