Part Four

You should have your pieces cut into squares, determined by the width of the strip sets. In the last section, I showed a whole bunch of my squares all cut up. If somehow you ended up with rectangles instead of squares, or squares not quite the right size, don't worry about it- it will all be fine soon.

In Part Four, we are going to sew these squares to the dark strip you have left. Place the dark strip on your sewing machine bed, good side up. Lay a square on it, good side down and dark strip on the bottom. Chain stitch all the squares to the dark strips. Here is a picture:

In this example, my "light" strip is the yellow one on top. My "medium" strip is the purple one on the bottom. The "dark" fabric is the strip underneath. Note that if everything is going well at this point, you ironed all the seams to the darker side when you made the strip sets, and since you are sewing with the darker of the two strips to the bottom (that's the purplish one on my example) the sewing machine foot is sliding over all the seams in the "favored" direction, i.e. with no tendency to lift the seam and fold it over. Ain't it nice when things work?

In the picture, I have spaced the pieces a bit further apart than I normally would, for emphasis. Space them as closely as you will be comfortable cutting when you cut them apart!

OK, you have a choice here- you can iron the seams in the strip, all at once, and then cut them out, or you can cut all the pieces out and then iron them separately. I prefer to separate/trim them with the pieces just as they come out of the machine, and that is what I will show. How you do it is not as important as that you produce a bunch of pieces that look like the picture of the finished blocks.

Using a square and a roller cutter, trim the top dark piece into alignment with the rest of the block. You can cut the strip into pieces and trim each separately, or trim them right out of the strip. I prefer the latter, and here are some photos:

Once you have trimmed all your pieces, open them up and iron the seam to the dark side, producing pieces as shown below:

Now, here comes the somewhat tedious part- checking and trimming these pieces to a final size. Trust me, the final size is not critical, nor is it critical that your dimension matches any of the discussed dimensions. What is important is that all of your pieces are the same size and that the proportions within the block are correct. The width of the three pieces should be the same. That's not too hard to understand. Determining the correct length of the paired strips is trickier to explain.

Study the block, figure on deducting a 1/4" seam allowance all around, and then figure that the height of the vertical strips should be twice the width of the horizontal strip. .

Here is a more complex explanation full of measurements:

Using the optimum or suggested dimension, 2" strips, the top strip is now 1 3/4", and each of the two vertical strips are 1 3/4". If you figure on a 1/4" seam allowance off of the top strip, in the final sewn version, it will be 1 1/2" wide. You can see where each of the vertical strips will also end up being 1 1/2" wide. Deduct 1/4" for a seam allowance on the bottom. The remaining portion of the vertical strips must equal twice what the finished dimension of the top strip will be, plus the seam allowance. In other words, the top strip will finish at 1 1/2", so the vertical strips should be cut at 3 1/4". I know this sounds complex. It really isn't- just think in terms of the finished block, and then add the seam allowances back in.

Here are some possible outcomes, depending on which size or system you used:

1. You are an experienced quilter and you cut everything to one of the planned dimensions, and all your blocks came out just what you expected them to.

If you started with 2" strips, this piece will measure 3 1/2" wide by 5" high.

If you started with 2 1/2" strips, the piece will measure 4 1/2" wide by 6 1/2" high.

If this is your situation, fine. I would still check all blocks for true squareness and/or to find any that maybe you'd rather not use. Otherwise, you are done with this part.

2. If you cut to the odd size with plans to trim to size later if you made mistakes, you most likely used 2 1/4" strips. Now you have an option- pick a dozen of your blocks and measure them. Don't worry about what they measure, just see if they all measure the same and are square. The correct measurement would be 4" x 6". If they do, you did very well and you can use them as is- you'll simply end up with a quilt that is a little bit in between the two sizes discussed. Again, I'd check all blocks to get the best uniformity I could, but essentially you are done with this part, too.
3. Ah, but let's say you checked your blocks and you are not finding them all the same size and true. Well, don't despair. Below is the procedure for trimming them to the exact planned size (assuming you are planning on the basis of the original 2" strip concept and cut 2 1/4" strips instead!) Please note also that if you cut to an exact size as above, but aren't happy with the resulting blocks, you can use this technique to trim them down and true them to a size you can use. If they need to be smaller than the measurements I give, just figure out what line on your ruler to use. Conceivably, you could trim them down to 1" x 2" doll quilt blocks if you wanted to. Again, the actual size is not critical- if you ended up with sloppy blocks and need to trim them down, you'll simply end up with a smaller quilt.

Trimming Blocks That Are Oversize

1. Turn the block sideways so that the dark strip is to the right. Place your ruler on it, with the 1 3/4" line on the seam. Trim the excess that is to the right of the ruler off. The dark strip should now be a perfect 1 3/4" wide and true to the seam.
2. Turn the block upright, so that the dark strip is on top. Place your ruler on it, aligning the 1 3/4" line on the seam between the two upright strips. Trim the excess that is to the right of the ruler off. The right hand, or lighter strip, should now be a perfect 1 3/4" wide and true to its seam.
3. Turn the block upside down, so that the dark strip is on the bottom. Repeat Step 2 with the remaining strip, trimming it so that it, too, is 1 3/4" wide and true to the seam.
4. Turn the block so that the dark strip is to the left. Measure from the upright seam to the right edge. The two light strips should measure 3 1/4" from the seam to the edge. Align the 3 1/4" mark on your ruler on the seam and trim off the excess to the right of the ruler.

The above process should produce a block that measures a nearly perfect 3 1/2" x 5" and is true on all edges.

So- all right- You have a whole shoe box full of nice blocks- take a break- Relax and then go to the next part. when I posted the original project, I gave the participants a week off at this point...