Category: Seeing Squares

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Virtual Sew Day – Mid-Morning Update

To learn about virtual sew day, be sure to check out this post.

I have been sewing now for a few hours and have gotten a few steps closer to my goals.

First off I started the morning by sewing up a few blocks for my solids only quilt. Which was goal #3. I do hope to get a few more done today, but I am happy to have accomplished at least one goal so far!!

I also got started on the binding for my first quilt. I was reading Mary’s goals today on her blog, Mary.Emmens.co.uk and discovered that she cut binding strips using her Accuquilt Go! I haven’t used my Baby Go! much and I couldn’t remember which dies I had picked up, but I knew I had one strips one. Luckily for me I had been smart enough to pick up the 2.5″ one, which is perfect for binding. Since my cutting board is currently being taken over by projects,

I decided to take Mary’s idea and give it a go (get it a Go!? hehehe).

I folded up the fabric so I could get 5 strips from my first cut. I was cutting through 6 layers of fabric on one side and 4 on the other.

It went through the Go! pretty well, but I could tell things were kind of bunching up.

There was not much scrap leftover from the cut, though i think if I had taken the time to clear off my cutting board and trim everything up and cut it with a ruler, I *may* have gotten one more strip out of it, but for the time saving and space saving aspect, I was okay with that.

The first set of strips were a little ruffley and pinch folded in spots,

but I think this was more my own fault for not ironing and not being careful as I ran it through the machine. The second set of strips was fine.

I had a heck of a time actually sewing mys trips together this time. Usually I never have to unpick my binding, but for some reason half my strips went on backwards so I had to do a lot of unpicking and resewing. I hate doing that, but I sucked it up and everything turn out fine in the end. Hopefully my binding goes on the quilt much easier than it went together.

So that’s what I have gotten done so far. Now I am off to keep plugging along. I hope everyone else is getting a lot done today too.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Seeing Squares – Empty Bobbin Pattern

I have been following the Empty Bobbin for quite a long time. Recently she showed a beautiful quilt that she made for a friend. I have been eyeballing her pattern called “Seeing Squares” for quite a while, and after seeing this version, I knew I had to make it.

I headed over to Pink Chalk Fabrics (another blog I love to follow) to pick up the pattern.

It arrived very quickly, and I knew exactly what fabrics I was going to use for it as soon as I got it. A while back I picked up a few bags full of solid fabric scraps from a yard sale. The pieces ranged from a few inches to half yard. I would estimate there was a total of 7 yards of scraps in all different colors and I literally paid $2 for all of it. I haven’t found a good way to use them yet, and I just thought this quilt would be perfect.

A day or two after I found the pattern, I was reading another favorite blog, Sew Create It. She was hosting a challenge called Sew Into Solids.

This was the perfect inspiration I needed to get going on this quilt. The first step was to get all the squares cut. If I was using yardage, it would be easy to cut the squares, but since I was using scraps, it was more of a project. I had to iron everything out, then figure out which pieces I could cut the larger squares from, then cut the rest from the smaller pieces. The size quilt I am making has 500+ squares.

It took me 2 days to cut all these! It was quite a project, but now I can get to the fun of sewing!! The larger blocks are cut up further and sewn back together so they are multi-colored. I started a few of them.

It’s actually a very easy pattern that is laid out great. It’s one of the easiest I have worked with so far. I am excited to see it all come together. If you are interested in trying out some solids only quilts, be sure to take a look at the Sew Into Solids flickr group.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel