Huge Quilt Block Squaring Up - one way how

Boy has it been a busy month!

There has been a lot of this going on.....all three boys moved bedrooms.....much cleaning and painting, getting things ready for the baby.

(Becket was super excited to help paint his new room.  Being unable to hand over control of stuff, I didn't want him to REALLY paint the wall.  So I gave him a small trim roller for his paint.  He worked happily away for a long time, then we re-coated the area for a solid look later.)

I've actually done a decent amount of quilt and baby sewing as well. Just haven't had the time to photo and post them yet.

But, I got an email asking about how I squared up my large, purple quilt blocks - they were larger than my biggest square ruler. I already had several pictures on my computer, and have ditched the photoshop editing part of my process in the interest of actually getting this posted!

The challenge here is a block that needs to be 24.5" square, my largest square ruler being 16.5".

Also, for the finished quilt to look just right, the white sashing needed to be perfectly centered in both directions.

To get all this done, I used a largish square ruler, my cutting mat, and a couple other 26"+ long, narrow rulers.

Start by marking what you want to be the center, on one of the block's edges.

You can see here that I used my Frixion pen.  Ironically, the email I got asking about how I accomplished this squaring up was asked by a quilter that had originally found my blog as she searched for information about the Frixion pen!  This is one of the two ways I actually DO use it on  my fabrics.  All the marks are in the seam allowance, or trimmed away.

My block needed to be 24.5" square, so I needed to measure OUT FROM this center point, half the size of my block - which is 12.25".

Please ignore the next two photos that need to rotate.   Part of the annoying blogger thing and how it randomly deals with unedited pictures.

I have my ruler lined up so that the 12.25 mark is at the center point of the block.  ALSO the vertical and horizontal are both aligned squarely.

Better view in that picture above - What is important is that those parts of the block are as near perfect in both directions.  That way the finished design looks like a square, and not a wacky, slanting rhombus or something.

Now, the tricky part.

Especially for those of us who are cursed with slipping ruler syndrome.

Hold your big square, and carefully slide a long ruler up against it, without shifting anything.  I would re-check the 12.25" mark and the squareness of that yellow ruler after getting the long ruler in place.

Oh, must be noted, I am right handed.  And I am totlaly unable to cut with my left.

If you can cut with your left, remove the first ruler (the square yellow one, in my case), hold the long ruler in place, and trim your block.

For myself, I carefully moved away the square, replaced it with yet another 26"+ long ruler - moved that second one out of the way - and then trimmed my block.

Did you get that?  It's a bit of swapping back and forth, and I'm lucky to have a big stack of rulers.

Those steps take the longest.  The point of them being getting yourself a starting point that puts the center exactly in the middle and the first edge perfectly square with your piecing.

Let's get the last three sides done.....

Using your cutting mat, line the nice edge you just made up with one of the ruled markings.

Check that it's nice and straight, top to bottom.

Count over to the other side, the full width of your finished block.

I had to go over 24.5"

Use a long ruler and the markings on your mat to perfectly cut the block, ending up with one set of perfectly parallel sides.

...Ugh, another sideways photo.....

Anyway, we are going to do the process again, for the last two sides.  WITH ONE DIFFERENCE.

After you mark the center of the sashing, you need to measure over that same half distance as before.  12.25" in my case.

INSTEAD of lining up your square ruler with the block piecing, you now line it up with one of the two sides we already cut.  I used two large squares to double check I was in exact center, because I'm Type A like that.  Do not freak out if your outside edge alignment and the block piecing alignment are just a bit off.  For me, an 1/8" drift was not visually obvious in the end.  I did have one mess of a block, I have no idea what I was doing as I pieced.  The sashing angled nearly 3/8" off center from side to side.  I re-made that block.

After you trim this third side, line it up on your cutting mat again and measure over the full block width for your last cut.

Ta-Da!  Perfectly square and centered, huge quilt block.

I'm thinking this all will make more sense if you are reading and cutting at the same time.  It's a bunch of shifting and rulers.  But I hope it helps!

Ask away with questions on any horribly confusing stuff, and I'll try to make things clear.

2012 Catch-up

I'm still here!  Making all kinds of stuff, but way too tired to actually edit and post photos of any of it.  Much to my woe, I don't have pictures of two of my finished quilts (!?!)

But here's a photo-heavy super fast summary of the last three months.

I was freezing in late October, so I made myself a SUPER soft scarf - AMH voile and flannel.  I also picked up a little knitting again, as I'm teaching a home school girl how to knit.  I used Lorana's laces worsted and made some fingerless mitts.

And you may not be able to tell from the photo, but I sure can - the reason I was totally lazy - I'm also busy making a baby!  Little one due June 22nd.  (Every one of my bathroom self-photos look a little psycho.  Not one of my skills!)



In October I finished up Bernina technical training.  I took an 830 apart into a million pieces.



And then actually got it back together and working properly!  Also did a couple other machines and a serger.  I've been having fun at the shop, cleaning and repairing both very old and current Berninas.



This is the year of the quilt for my close group of friends.  Our boys were tiger scouts in 1st grade, and we bonded over the cub scout years of crazy.  With those same boys HS sophomores at this point, the 5 of us get together for birthday breakfasts, at the least, throughout the year.  I always do something hand made, and was running out of ideas.  So I went the easy route and decided I would do a special lap quilt for each of them this year.

The first birthday is Larua's, in August.  She is a pink person, and I had a blast pulling all my pinks for a sparkle punch.  I gifted the quilt top and then took it back to finish :)  It turned out awesome, and I for some reason have only this one picture!



Maureen was next, with her December birthday.  I love this bow tie pattern and went with it in huge blocks to show off my favorite blues and greens.  She's a gnome lover, like me.  She's totally Heather Ross Gnome-worthy, and I used a big hunk of it.



All the bow tie corner extras were stitched at the same time into HSTs, and I did a random block of them on the back.  With one more little gnome in a special spot by my birthday wish for her.



Finished up my bee blocks - horribly late and some without even taking photos.

Lee's solids were wonderful.



And I loved doing my own hexagon improv, using the pink dandelion fabric as inspiration.



Finally got to see my quilt in print, after completing and sending it off a year ago November.



I'm one of the contributors in this new book, with my large lap quilt called Starflower.  I was having fun looking at the idea of negative space that we all talk about, and actually reversing it - swapping the prints/solid neutral, within modern quilt designs.  This is the one they accepted for the book.



I've made this pattern by Amy Smart three times now, and I love it every time!  This was a baby shower gift, and I actually have several more photos.  So I'll talk about it more in another post.



Same for the custom ocean quilts I did.  I so love how they turned out, but I don't have a single picture of the second one!  WTF?



Let's call it a wrap on 2012!

Hexagon Bee Block.....

A little late....as it was a September block.



But I am having the best time making this one.

Never saw that pink print before. It's a wonderful collection of dandelion puffs. I thought the hexagons could echo that feeling and move from one corner to the other.

How long do you wait for your bee-mates' fabric to speak to you before you finally get their blocks made? I'm usually on-time-to-early, but late this month! So glad I waited. This idea just struck me a few days ago.

Paper Pieced Star

This month in the {Sew}Beautiful Bee, Kati asked for paper pieced stars.

...using an amazing array of yellows and greys, that she has been collecting for a long time.  Here's her post on the quilt plan.

Source: fromthebluechair.com via Angela on Pinterest

I loved her fabrics so much, I pinned them.  For me, awesome yellow and grey are the most difficult to find.

I really enjoy paper piecing, so I was excited to pick out a block for her. I made a Rolling Star - paper pieced pattern on Quilter's Cache.



Super fun block!

This was the first time I've had the chance to use Pure Elements - the light grey background solid. What an amazing fabric for paper piecing! The hand of the fabric allows for very crisply pressed seams. I would love a whole rainbow stack of it.

A Gnome Home

I got excited as I pulled fabrics and had to snap a quick iphone picture of this gnome home to be.



Have a great weekend!

.

Mod Mosaic Rainbow

Brooke had the most awesome idea for her month in our bee.

As many of us have, she participated in some of Kati's awesome color wheel charm swaps. Here's the flickr group for the swaps - if you haven't seen it yet, there's lots of great rainbow inspiration.

The trick is figuring out what you want to do with all that 5" rainbow goodness!

Brooke sent a bunch of her charms for making Mod Mosaic blocks, based on the tutorial by Elizabeth Hartman. 

The colors in each of the blocks should flow through a range of three - from upper left to lower right. Then she is going to set the blocks into a quilt that will flow through the whole rainbow. Check out her post, she has a mock-up of the plan.

Brooke wants 12.5" blocks, so we're sending 12.75" blocks so that she doesn't lose anything in the fraying that can happen when our creations make their way through the mail system.

Here was my first pass - I think I counted up a total of 12 charms that she sent.  I chopped and laid out a plan within a 13" square, just to make sure the block would be big enough.  I left a 1/2" gap, mimicking the white strips.

I should have done that step without any gap, because you're also loosing a 1/2" between each bit when you make those seams with the white.  So I had to improvise a little and change my plans to make sure the square would be large enough.

Compare my finished block - photoshop cropped to what would be about a 12.75" square - with the layout above. 

You can see how I had to add sections to get the dimensions right.  I think it was looking like the finished block would be about 11.75-12" square if I had not added onto the plan.

And it used more white strips than I would have ever though possible!  When I opened Brooke's package, I thought she had sent so much extra, but I ended up with EXACTLY the right amount.

I tend to forget how much fabric is eaten up by all those seams.   As Brooke did, it's also good to do your own block sample before sending out fabric to bee-mates.  If it had been me, I would have underestimated the number of charms and lengths of white strips by a bunch.

Bee blocks in Voile....

I'm still alive, and mostly just sewing bee blocks. The new spring lacrosse season has begun, with Caleb on the High School JV team - so mostly I drive to/from practices and games all week.

Luckily, friends send super pretty, soft fabrics to play with! Elizabeth is going to have a gorgeous AMH voile quilt of squares.



Emily's month was very cool, too. She send an amazing Joel Dewberry package - we were to make a block with the offset, wide border and white frame, then free reign to do whatever we wanted inside that window.

I went with what is most fun for me - sew/chop/sew/chop/add-turn/chop/sew. I love to see where each new step takes the fabric before deciding what to do next.



As I was looking over the plan that Brooke has for us (Be sure to check it out - it's an awesome use of all those color wheel swap charms we have), I realized that I'm up next in May.

But all we've been doing is enjoy the crazy early summer thing going on here.  And during the past week it was spring break, which we started with a trip into the city.

Becket had tons of fun playing in the rain at The Bean (actually named The Cloud Gate or something like that, but everybody calls it The Bean).  It's been here for years and this is the first time we've been to it.  You never do stuff that's near your home, do you!

I like this self portrait - the geometric, bent in the curve of the bean - neutrals with just a bit of blues and lime green. 

Seemed like a good quilt plan to me. 

Except that I realized it's pretty much what I always do for bee blocks.  I'll have to come up with something different.  But I certainly like what I like.

Which is more difficult - worry over doing a friend's block just right, or deciding what you'll want made for your own month?!

.

The Copyright can o' worms

Worms (and some recent bee blocks if you're not fond of worms)

Not just that it can get controversial and contentious, but it truly is all crazy and interwoven with creativity/generosity/respect on so many levels.  And sometimes it helps just to hear what everybody is thinking.

Come, sit in my parlor for a lively discussion.

My first level response is that there is not much of a legal ground for people to stand on if they want to tell others what they can do with items sewn/knit/crafted  based on their published patterns.   I know people go round and round with this and I have read a good bit of the copyright laws for myself (I'm obsessive like that - read the whole New Testament one day beginning to end as I looked for a quote for my lecture).  Based on that, my view is if you publish a pattern - the person who purchases and uses that pattern to then make something is able to do whatever they like with their creation, be it keep/gift/sell.



People may NOT may photocopies/digital files/etc of the actual pattern to sell or even give away.  It isn't theirs to give.  But the thing they have crafted with their hands, based on the pattern, IS.

I believe the more reasonable request is similar to what Keyka Lou asks - just that you credit her with the design when you sell things made from her patterns.  No special permissions needed.  Because legally, they can sell them anyway.



Now all crafters would be super grumpy if say Target picked up their published pattern and decided to mass produce it without any compensation.  That's quite different in my mind.  But where is the line between these two?

What if I had a crafty family and my 7 sisters (and even a brother) were set to task creating 30 of those same items from a published pattern for an etsy shop.  Getting kind of fuzzy.....and I think that is just one small aspect of the copyright conundrum!



I love this comment from my last post:   Techniques belong to us all....the rest is complicated.

That actually ties in with the question I asked about what books or patterns you purchase.  Because as I mentioned, with some paper and a pencil I'm able to reverse engineer lots of stuff.  That's just how my brain works.



For myself, I generally pay for a pattern if: a) I truly have no idea how to make said item b) I believe the instructions included will have a unique technique or construction method that could save time or improve end result c) Greatly admire the author's work and just want to support their efforts even though I could reverse engineer the pattern. 

So a couple examples from stuff I've bought.  I think Allison from Cluck Cluck Sew is awesome!  She has shared so many great tutorials, I especially liked using her double hourglass block instructions.  Be sure to give that one a try if you haven't already.  I totally relate to her mind keeping her up - knowing that there HAD to be a better way to make those things!



When she showed her fun Chain Reaction quilt and pattern, it was quickly added to my to-make list.  With graph paper I could draft a plan myself without buying her pattern.  But I DID buy her pattern - because I had already used many of her great tutorials and felt like it was a small way for me to support another crafty mom.

At the same time she had an Irish chain pattern that I don't see now - a very old block that you can find online or make easily without formal instructions.   But after using Allison's tutorials and reading her Chain Reaction pattern, I also bought the Irish Chain pattern knowing that she would have some key tips inside making it way more easy to assemble than traditionally.

That's enough for now.  I would love to here what you think.

.

The Modern 4x5 Quilt Bee : Q3

I was lucky to get in on the awesome new 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee 

Sometimes I feel like I need another swap or quilt along like I need more fabric :)  Good thing I didn't dawdle too long deciding to do this one, as it filled up fast with quite a waiting list!

I'm in a group with five other fabulous quilters....we each make the five others a block of our choosing, with a modern flair, in the colors of their choosing.

I am having fun making mini fabric galleries with twenty 1" pieced squares framed by a large outside print. A couple are done.

Lauree asked for blues, oranges, greys, and natural linen.  Had to add that little spotty hedgehog!  I usually press all my seams open, but alternating left/right for the tiny squares is really helping the corners meet just right.

Jill wanted robin egg blue, apple green, with touches of red and white. The colors in that photo are a tad off - too yellow.  But I could not get the camera and photoshop to work together today.  These are my favorite colors, so I had a hard time trying to pick just one block's worth of scraps for Jill's!

Off to find more treasures in my scrap bins for the others.  What a fun hunt!