Friday 16 November 2012

life cant get any easier


Easy Circle Quilt

 

Nothing can be easier than this. For the quilt shown at the end I used 5 FQ’s for the circles and 1 ½ yds for the back ground

For this quilt I used 8 ½” squares but you can use any size you want. You will need two background squares for each circle fabric

 

Fold your fabrics into quarters and finger press to mark the centre


 
You will need the circle cut ruler and cutter, I got mine at the Missouri Star Quilt Company this is also where this tutorial is from.

Fold your circle fabric in half, line the fold line on the ruler and centre on the fabric, choose the size of circle you wish to cut, I cut at the 4” section. Run your cutter along the groove and you have a positive and negative circle

 

Lay on your background squares, you will need to centre the circle


I used a spot of glue to hold both in place, then take to the sewing machine and stitch ¼” seam allowance, leave the edge raw, no turning in needed!!

Then simply join the squares, I trimmed the background from the square with no centre, to leave just one layer to stitch through. In no time you have a quilt like this. With hindsight I would have cut the squares for the piece with the hole in it smaller to save the trimming.
Now all I have to do is decide if I shall add a border or not. I think it looks fine without I will quilt just the white parts. This reminds me of the bullseye quilt from an online swap I took part in many years ago with the Quilting Sisters group. I am sure its on my blog somewhere.
Looking at this now on the wall I am thinking each block could have been cut in half again and rejoined with an opposite (postitive and negative in the one block). Must try a sample and see what it looks like.
 







Wednesday 14 November 2012

How to make real quick scrap 4 patches


Thought Id give this a go and see how quick it really is, and it is!
For this I started with  5" squares.
This is done in pairs so join two squares by stitching along two opposite sides. Repeat this for as many patches as you want, it can be done in two colours or real scrappy like my example.




Then take your ruler, measure from the edge of the fabric NOT the stitch line and cut at 2 1/2"

Turn and join ends mixing themup as you join




Flip over one end ontop of the next piece
again using your ruler measure from the fabric ede and cut at 2 1/2 ". Keep the odd piece you will need it for the last piece cut
keep flipping over and cutting (you are flipping over a 2 piece)
Hey presto a pile of four patches in no time .

This can be done any size