Creative articles about quilting

Sugaridoo Quilt Along part 5 – ‘This way’

19.03.2020 by 49 Comment now!17,869

Helloo! How are you? I’m so happy that you’re here, still quilting along with us on the Sugaridoo BERNINA quilt along. So beautiful to see all the different color schemes in the rows. So special to be making this with all of you. So thank you for being part of this wonderful quilting adventure! Today it’s time to get started with the 5th part of our QAL.

New here?

If you’re new here, welcome! On the 28th of November we kicked off a super fun quilting project. We started a quilt along, where thousands of quilters from all over the world are making the same quilt. Every four weeks a new part of the pattern, a new row, will be released. After 12 rows you will have a quilt of 70 x 90″.

Even though we started four weeks ago you can still join us! You will have enough time to catch up. There are also still fabric kits available for this quilt along. You can make the quilt in rainbow colors on silver fabric, in rainbow on white fabric or with blue fabrics. Of course you can also pick your own fabrics or use what you have in your stash.

On this page your can find all the links to previous blog posts about this project. Hop over to this blog post to read all the general information about this quilt project. And also read this one to learn more about the materials we use and the fabric requirements.

Row #4 ‘This way’

It can be great to have someone point you in the right direction. Especially when you’re a bit lost. But isn’t it true that we have the best adventures by wandering off, by trying to find things out on our own, by getting a bit lost on purpose in order to find our way back all by ourselves?

With this row I want to challenge you to take a baby step in the direction of figuring out your own design. We are going to do a little bit of improv quilting. Just a tiny tiny bit. I am going to write down exactly the way I made my row. So you have the option of listening to me saying ‘This way please’. But you are also free to try and find your own version of this row. Give it a shot, it’s really not as scary as it sounds.

This is the row that we will be making today:

Are your excited? I sure am! In this YouTube video I’ll go over all the steps to cut and sew your fabric to make this row. 

Fabric + Material

For everyone working with the rainbow kit, we will use Kumquat as our main fabric, Titanium as accent and Silver as background fabric. When you are making the quilt with the blue kit you should get your Silver fabric out as your main fabric. 

For those of you who want to play with the location of the accent color in each row, or add extra accent colors or just want to get a little more insight in the layout of the quilt. Here is a schematic of the rows and the placement of the accent colors. 

And this is what the schematic of the quilt looks like for the blue fabric kit. 

You will need the following to make this row.

  • Main fabric: 12 inch
  • Accent fabric
  • Background fabric: 7.5 inch
  • Inch ruler (12 x 6 of 24 x 6 will be fine)
  • Rotary cutter
  • Cutting mat
  • Iron + ironing board
  • Sewing machine with a 1/4″ foot, I’m using the #97 patchwork foot
  • Thread (I use thread in the color of my background fabric)

Cutting scheme

We are going to make a fish bone / chevron / french braid row. For that, we need to cut some strips.

Cut the following strips. Where it says WOF it means that you will cut a strip over the whole Width Of Fabric. All measurements are including seam allowance.

  • Main fabric (Kumquat): 
    • One strip of 4 inch x WOF
      • Cut one square of 4 x 4 inch
      • Cut the strip in half, so you will get two strips of 2 inch x WOF
      • Cut those strips in 9 pieces of 5 x 2 inch and 9 pieces of 3 1/2 x 2 inch
    • One strip of 2 inch x WOF
      • Cut this strips in 5 pieces of 5 x 2 inch and 5 pieces of 3 1/2 x 2 inch
    • Two strips of 1 1/2 inch x WOF
      • Cut this strip in 10 pieces of 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 inch and 10 pieces of 3 1/2 x 1 1/2 inch
    • Two strips of 1 inch x WOF
      • Cut this strip in 10 pieces of 4 x 1 inch and 10 pieces of 3 1/2 x 1 inch
  • Background fabric (Silver):
    • Five strips of 1 1/2 inch x WOF
      • Cut this strip in 25 pieces of 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 inch and 25 pieces of 3 1/2 x 1 1/2 inch
  • Accent fabric (Titanium):
    • You can use the left over piece from part 1 of our QAL to cut
      • One piece of 5 x 2 inch and 1 piece of 3 1/2 x 2 inch
    • Or you can choose a different size for your accent piece, or even make multiple accent pieces in the row.

Cutting scheme for main fabric Kumquat

Cutting scheme for background fabric Silver

Cutting scheme for accent fabric Titanium

These cutting schemes can also be downloaded as a PDF: Cutting schemes for QAL part 5 – Row #4 [Rainbow]

Here you can download the cutting scheme for the Blue fabric kit: Cutting Schemes for QAL part 5 – Row #4 [Blues]

1/4″ seam allowance

This is another row where you can practice sewing with a 1/4″ seam allowance. In this blog post you can read some tips on how to sew with a 1/4″ seam allowance. I’m using the BERNINA patchwork foot #97D for my 1/4″seams.

Choose your own path

As you’ve might have noticed during cutting, we made sets of strips. Each set has a long and a short strip, which together will make our chevron shapes. For each chevron we will add a short strip first, and then a long strip. There are sets of 2″, 1 1/2″ and 1″ in main fabric. All the background pieces are 1 1/2″ wide.

We will make the whole row by alternating background and main fabric strips. Here is where the tiny bit of improve comes in. You can choose any order of strips you’d like. 

Or make a bit of a pattern in there like this. Under the illustrations you can read the order of the main fabric strips.

1 1/2 – 1 – 1 1/2 (accent) – 2 – 1 1/2 – 1 – 1 1/2 – 2 – 1 1/2 – 1 – etc.

 

2 – 1 1/2 (accent) – 1 – 2 – 1 1/2 – 1 – 2 – 1 1/2 – 1 – etc.

 

2 – 2 (accent) – 1 1/2 – 1 1/2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 1 1/2 – 1 1/2 – 1 – 1 – etc.

 

Or choose your own random order. 

This is the order of strips I used to make my row, in case you do like to make it just like I did:

1 1/2 – 2 – 2 (accent) – 1 – 1 – 2 – 1 1/2 – 2 – 1 – 2 – 1 1/2 – 1 1/2 – 1 – 2 – 1 1/2 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 1 1/2 – 2 – 1 – 2 – 2

The accent piece (or pieces) should be place around 10 inches from the left side of the row.

Let’s start sewing

We start with the 4 x 4″ square. Take a short background fabric strip and sew it to the square

Fold open and give it a press. I’m pressing my seams to one side in this row.

Take a long background fabric strip and sew it to the other side of the square.

Fold your fabric open and press.

Take a short main fabric strip, sew it to the background strip, fold open and press.

Take a long main fabric strip, sew it to the background strip, fold open and press.

Continue adding strips until your row is well over 70 1/2 inch.

Trim the row

When you’ve reached the length of over 70 1/2 inch, you can trim of the sides of the row. I starts by cutting off the beginning of the row, I’m cutting away half the square that we started with.

 

After that, place your row on your mat and try to align it with the lines on your mat. This will help you straighten the row. I looked at where the outer corners of the background fabric strips crossed the lines below and tried to straighten my row that way. I marked where I was looking at in the picture below in green.

At this point I’m just trying to place the row as straight as possible on my cutting mat. As you’ve probably noticed, this row is very stretchable, so it’s easy to place it curved on your mat while the fabric is still laying flat.

So just try to align it with your mat. Then place your ruler with the two inch mark on the center of your row. This row should be 4 inches high including seam allowance, so on both sides of the center line we will need 2 inches. 

Now trim of the edges on one side

Turn the row and line it up with your mat again. Trim of the other side of the row as well so you end up with 4 inches. 

Repeat it process for the whole row. Take a look at the video for this to see me trim off all the edges.

Finally you can cut the row to the correct length, 70 1/2 inches. I have folded my row in half and cut it on the 35 1/4 inch mark on my mat. You can see me do this as well in the video.

Done!

And there it is, the fifth part of our quilt along. Whoohoo! Good job. How did yours turn out? What did you decide on for the order of the strips?

Happy quilting!

Irene

 

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