|
:: February 7, 2009 Tutorial: Easy Pieced Curves a la Fleming
I created this tutorial ages ago but never posted it for some reason! I had to revisit it to see if I could use it for my Single Girl piecing. I don't think I can for the inner circles, but I can for the outer part of each block. ..... Before taking on the Pie In the Sky Quilt in the Denyse Schmidt Quilts
1. Ingredients: outer background fabric, freezer paper, inner circle fabric*, compass or circle cutter. And, not pictured, glue stick (acid-free, water-soluble, preferably archival quality), your standard everyday sewing supplies
2. Cut a square of freezer paper the same size as your finished block. Fold diagonally both ways to find the center. Draw a circle on the smooth (non-waxed) side the exact size you want your inner circle to be. Standard compasses only draw circles so big -- you can get the tool you see in the picture here at your local hardware store.
3. Cut out the center of the freezer paper. Scrapbooking supply stores might have circle cutters that would make quick work of this, or you can get a somewhat expensive circle rotary cutter at your quilt supply store. These contraptions only go up to about 6" (15cm), though -- for bigger circles you're going to need to hand-cut.
4. With a dry iron, iron the freezer paper, wax side down, to the wrong side of the background fabric. The freezer paper should be good and stuck to your background fabric.
5. Now, cut out the center of the background fabric about 1/2" (1.5cm) from the edge of the freezer paper.
6. Cut "fringe" into the overhanging fabric. Your cuts should end at least 1/8" (0.3 cm) from the edge of the freezer paper.
7. Run a glue stick around the edge of the freezer paper LIGHTLY. You want the minimal amount of glue to tack the fringe down in the next step.
8. Press the fringe out with the tip of your iron (which is still on a no-steam setting). Turn over to the right side to check that curve flows smoothly. If not, lift that area of the fringe and re-tack with the tiniest amount of glue.
9. Now run your glue stick around the edge again right onto the fabric, this time more heavily. It's best to keep the glue on the fabric so that none gets on the paper.
10. Place the glue side down on top of the right side of your inner circle fabric and press, again with a dry iron. The inner circle and outer background fabrics will now be temporarily fused together.
11. Peel the outer background fabric from the freezer paper. Then, pop the freezer paper out. This can be a little tricky. If you did steps 6-9 perfectly it should release easily. It may require some coaxing and ripping. If the inner circle and outer background fabrics come apart in places, just lay right side up on your ironing board, nudge some glue in there, and re-iron.
12. With the block facing right side up now, gather up the outer background fabric into a little bundle. This exposes where you are going to sew -- into the fold between the outer background and inner circle fabrics.
13. Sew around the fold line on the fabric. Ms. Fleming recommends a zipper foot for the sewing, but I had a really hard time with that. I found that a transparent plastic foot worked better. The trickiest part is keeping the excess fabric on the left of the needle from bunching up under the feed dogs. Sewing over a lump will mess you up. If you're not good at feeding the fabric smoothly, just pause and lift the feed dogs every so often with the needle down and smooth the left side out.
14. It's going to look ugly coming off the machine. Press on the wrong side and again on the right side and it'll be beautiful.
15. Cut away excess inner circle fabric to leave a 1/4-1/2" seam allowance.
16. Here is what the back of a finished block looks like. On the Pie in the Sky block, the light colored fabric of the pie "crust" dictated that I press the seams toward the darker fabric. But with this technique, pressing the seams in toward the center of the circle yields an applique look; pressing the seams out away from the circle yields a pieced look.
17. Done! Don't you feel mighty? If you are intrigued by the possibilities of this "pinless piecing" technique, be sure to check out the book If you're worried about using glue instead of pins -- that somehow it's cheating or chinzy looking or that's going to ruin your fabric -- seriously, don't worry, give it a test run and you'll see. I entered my Pie in the Sky quilt in a show and the design [not my work] and piecing [using this technique] were the only parts that got praise! I have had the quilt for a while now and the glue has not lingered or seeped through in any way. Since it's water-soluble, as far as I know it all washed out the first time through the laundry. * My inner circle fabric happens to be a circle-in-a-square block that was already pieced using Ms. Fleming's technique**. If you are following the Pie in the Sky pattern from the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book, this technique allowed me to skip the "C" pieces altogether. Using this pinless technique will save you WEEKS of laborious hand-applique. ** In Ms. Fleming's tutorial you use a square of fabric the same size as the finished block for your inner circle fabric. But you can use circles too, e.g. the coral-and-brown pieced "pie" blocks in this pattern. Using a square for the inner circle fabric just gives you a little more leeway with the gluing and sewing. The Pie in the Sky quilt is copyright Denyse Schmidt, of course. posted by in Quilting
Comments What a great tutorial! Your pictures are wonderful!! I have Dale Fleming's book but haven't ever tried the technique because I've always wimped out and appliqued my circles. Your post gives me courage. Plus I need to find a cooler compass like yours. :-) THanks for sharing this!! Posted by amy Lobsiger on February 8, 2009 8:37 AM I love a tutorial that I can scroll down, just skimming the pics, and gather about 95% of what I need to learn. When I need to use it, I'll come back for more. Thanks. Posted by Michelle on February 8, 2009 11:27 AM Wow-this is fantastic! You explain things so well and your pictures are wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing this information, I'll be linking. Posted by Rachel on February 8, 2009 5:15 PM Oh my heavens. The only thing that would make this tutorial better is if you came to my house and did it 12 times and then let me keep the squares! Seriously, this was REALLY helpful! Thanks! Posted by Jen on February 9, 2009 2:53 PM Wow, I never would have imagined a technique like this in a million years. I'll have to check out Dale's book too. Very cool. I'm also glad to know I'm not the only person that inadvertently stashes complete posts! Posted by kathy on February 10, 2009 2:08 AM I used this technique on a quilt not long ago, it came out great! http://flickr.com/photos/93212052@N00/3181832911/ You're tutorial has much prettier pictures :) Posted by Heather on February 13, 2009 11:45 AM |
