Monday, March 28, 2011

Many Trips Around the World Tutorial

I had a great time playing in my room last week!  Some of the stuff I did was for upcoming blog events, so I won't show you everything I worked on right now.  I dug out a project that I haven't touched in a long time and wanted to show you a technique that I love to use for sewing small squares, or triangle squares, or just about anything else you want to use it for!

Have you ever had a project that had LOTS of pieces and you had to work too hard to keep them in order?  This may help.  Please note that, of course, I don't have pics from the beginning so I'll do my best to bring you up to date.

This was another of my "Tattered Treasures" adventures!  I bought a partly done baby quilt made from precious flannel squares that had no pattern or design at all.  As you can see, they were poorly pieced using red and black threads or whatever else was available!  Here's what they looked like after I took them all apart.

(Click on the pics to enlarge)


I guess you noticed that darling little Scottie Dog print, which was probably the reason I bought it in the first place! :~D  I recut all the squares to measure 2".  At some time I had also accumulated some vintage flannel samples with several childrens designs so I picked the ones I thought would work (see the strips) and cut those into 2" squares as well.  I also added some solids.


The first thing you want to do is to lay all the squares out on your design wall or floor.  When I started sewing, I chose to work with just 1/2 of the piece so it wouldn't be so large.  The squares below have been partially sewn together, so you'll have to imagine raw edges all the way around.


Here's how you sew....  Starting at the top left square, sew it and the one to the right of it together.  DO NOT CUT THE THREAD.  Then chain piece the 1st and 2nd squares of each vertical row from top to bottom.  When the rows are sewn together, cut the thread.  Here's how it will look (obviously much longer).


Then, starting with the top square in the 3rd row, sew all the squares in that row to the two squares already sewn.  Again, DO NOT cut the thread!


Sew each vertical row to the horizontal rows until you're done.  You'll end up with all your rows connected together!  So now you don't have to worry about losing your place and end up with the wrong square somewhere. 


When all the vertical rows are sewn, you'll match your seams and sew the rows together horizontally.  You may want to press the seams of each row in opposite directions beforehand to make it easier to work with.  In the picture below, you'll see the completed 1/2 on the left and a partially sewn half on the right.  To further help me keep track, I put a safety pin in the upper left corner of each half. 


To create the illusion of a border, I used a solid aqua with print triangle square around the Trips design and the finished with more squares.

So that's it!  I'll get the rest sewn together and show you the finished product soon, I hope!  I also hope it hasn't been too confusing.  Please don't hesitate to ask questions in the comments and I'll answer there, too, so everyone with have the benefit of the information.

Thanks for checking in and I'll see you next time~