Overall Quilter

I’ve been busy working on my diamonds. And today I want to show you how to take the strip set we cut in our first video and sewed, and cut them on the 45 degree angle. I also want to talk to you about your corners and your applique.
So let’s go take a look at our strips.

So now that we have our strips together, I want to show you how to cut the 45 degree angle.
So, I’ve taken my strip sets and I want to ensure that my measurement is exactly 10 ½ inches. So I’ve laid my 10 ½ inch ruler on top of my strips. And if I need to, I can always go back to my ironing board, a little bit of Best Press and make it stretch out a little bit to, ensure that I am on 10 ½. If not, you might need to take it back to your sewing machine and create or lessen your (¼) quarter inch, maybe make it a little bit more scant to make sure that it’s 10 ½ all the way through. If it’s not, then your piece is not going to be accurate. So your points are going to be very hard to try and match.

So now that I know that my strip set is 10 ½, I’m going to take my long ruler, and I want to show you where the 45 degree angle is. That 45 degree angle is going to lay right along the last strip, nice and straight. And then, you’re going to take your rotary cutter, and we’re going to cut that piece out. That’s your waste piece.
Now we’re ready to cut our strips at whatever size you need to make it.
And again, you can ensure that you’re cutting right by using 45 degree angle at the bottom of your piece. And that way, you’ll know that you’re always on 45 degree.
So I’m gonna a 1 ½. And I see my 45 is straight, and my 1 ½ is straight, and so I’m going to go ahead and cut all the way through. And I’m gonna do that until I get to the edge of that strip.

Now let’s talk about how to sew the strips together.
So I’ve taken two of the pieces that I’m going to be sewing, and we’re going to offset; or not offset but, your light and your dark will be opposite each other.
So if I take two of those and I flip one on top of the other, your seams are going to nest again. And this is where it’s very important that you know where your ¼ inch seam is on your sewing machine. So by pinning;
And a ¼ inch is about 3; if you’re using a 2.0, it’s about 3 stitches in and you can out your pin through there, and it will come out exactly on the opposite side of your seam.
And by doing that and sewing it, you’ll get those perfect seams together.
And you’re going to do that with all of your strips until you have your diamonds.
And you need 8 of those diamonds.

So let’s pin a couple and sew them, and let’s talk a little bit about how to cut the squares for your outside corners.

So now we’re at our sewing machine and we’re ready to sew our strips together, our units together.
And I want to show you how when you lay them one on top of the other, you’re gonna have that dog ear, and that’s approximately about a ¼ of an inch. And if you do that and you take your pin, then we can pin match that. Again either, about the third stich in, and if you do that, it will come right through on the other side of the seam.
And if you have to, you can do one strip at a time, just take it and then push it through. And then while that pin is standing nice and straight, go ahead and take another one and just pin that one in place.
And we’re going to do that to each one being very careful not to stretch your units out of whack. That should lay right pretty nicely on there.

[Putting pins]

Let’s see.
These are lining up very nice.
If you notice that they are not lining up, you might need to take a look at your 45. If your ruler shifted, then your strips are not going to line up.
So again, just be very careful in your cutting and your piecing on the strips.
These are lining up nicely.
And so now, my last one.

Okay. That’s the last one.

And again, you’ll be left with a little dog ear on the bottom side.
And I’ve pinned from the outside, or from the inside out, so that I can – I don’t know why that one moved – so that I can leave my pins in place and not worry about taking them and distorting that seam.
So I’ve started with my little piece of fabric, my starter piece and I’m going to go ahead and sew that all the way down.
Needle down so that when my machine stops, it will stop with the needle down.
And I go pretty slow when I’m kind of crossing my pins. Here comes another pin. So I’ll slow down and make sure that I don’t hit any of those pins.
And see, I want to show you how as I was stitching, my fabric kind of moved to the left. So at this point, instead of going all the way through, I’m going to stop, lift my fabric, and I’ll just put it back in. I’m not going to worry about taking that, those stitches out because when I start stitching again, it’s;
Actually what happened was, my ¼ inch got really skinny. So what I’m gonna do is just put it back in. And if hold your fabric a little close to your; if you put your hands closer to your fabric, closer to the presser foot, you can control that fabric and make it go, or stay actually, where you need it to stay.
And as I come through to the end;

[Sound of dog barking]
The joy of having a dog! Why are you barking?

We’re going to finish that off, and I’ll take my little piece of scrap fabric and put it back in and finish that off.
Let’s see how I did!
Okay, now that we have stitched all the way through, we’re gonna check to make sure that our seams are nice and where we want them to be.
And they all look pretty good.
Once I press that, you’re going to have a nice; all those points will meet nicely.
And again, I’m going to take it to the ironing board and just go ahead and press that, that seam open.
So that is how you sew all those pieces together.

What I want to show you next is how to prepare for your applique pieces.
How to cut up a square if you don’t have a ruler that is the size that you need, like say, a 21 inch square. Obviously, not many of us have a 21 inch square. So I want to show you how to use two rulers to achieve that.

I’ve taken my ‘Steam and Seam’ or my ‘Heat and Bond’, anything that, whatever product you use for your fusible, and I’ve traced off my pieces, labeled them and out them in little Ziploc bags, getting them ready for appliqueing them onto my piece.
I wanted to show you how to cut your squares out because they are larger pieces and so, without having real big rulers, I wanted to show you how to measure using the two rulers.
So I need the square to be 21 and a ¼ inches. So I’ve used my 16 ½ and my 6 1/2 , and together, I’m just going to add 6 ½, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and my quarter. So if I lay my ruler on that ¼ inch edge, then I have the distance that I need to cut my square. And you’re ready to do your next cut.

And that’s how you cut if you’ve got a longer piece.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this, and if you have any other questions, feel free to come back!

I’d been working on a T-shirt quilt, and wanted to give you this tip on how to sew your sashing to the T-shirt part.
And so, I’ve gone ahead and pinned my sashing and the tip is – you want to make sure that when you are sewing the two together, keep the cotton on your feed dogs, closest to your feed dogs, and the T-shirt closest to your presser foot.
And by doing that, you will have a better; the sewing machine will grip the bottom a little bit easier, and you won’t have so much slippage or buckling of the T-shirt on the top.
Also, by keeping your pins in this direction, you don’t have to worry about taking those pins out, distorting the seam as you’re going along.
Hope that works for you!

Welcome to another addition of overallquilter.com

My name is Aimee Griffin. And today’s segment is on “Meeting perfect points”. I’m gonna show you some of the tools that I’ll be using in this video.

• The Clover Patchwork Pins. I like them because they are very thin. So they sit nice and flat on your seam. We also have the glass head at the end.
• The other tool that I love to use is the Aurifil Thread. And I like the Aurifil thread because of how thin that thread is. So it’s going to make your seam sit nice and flat. There will be no bulk on that seam.

So today, we’re going to be learning about how to get a perfect point. Or, how to get your seams to match perfectly, on a four-patch or when you’re joining locks together.

You wanna start with two equal parts. So, take two strips, sew them down together. Take a T-Iron, press them out and cut them into two even sections. So we have two even sections here. You will notice that I have pressed towards the darker of the two fabrics. Right sides together. And you will also notice that your seams will nest. And it’s really important that you get a nice hot Iron to make those seams nice and flat.

I like to use three pins. My first pin is going to go right through the seam, about a ¼ inch, and from the top, and put that pin so that it stands nice and straight. It should come out exactly on the other side of your seam. If it doesn’t, wiggle your fabric until you get that perfect point, that perfect seam. See how it went through!

While keeping that pin nice and straight, you wanna take your second pin, and pin to the left, and your third pin will pin to your right. You will also notice that I don’t have my pins, my pin heads going this way. I have my pins in the opposite direction. And I do this so that when I’m sewing, I don’t have to pull my pins. Sometimes when you’re sewing your fabric tends to slide, and so, this will prevent any sliding from happening. Once I’ve pinned on the right and the left side, then I can remove that center pin out. And I’m going to use two more pins. One, to the left side where my unit starts, and one to the right side where it’s going to end.

Alright! So now what we want to do is, before I even get started sewing, I’m going to use a starter. And a starter is just a piece of fabric, excess, scraps, that I’m going to put underneath my presser foot, just to start sewing on. This way your thread won’t get, sometimes your thread will bumble up, or we like to call it thread throw-up. So anyway, we’re going to start on on that, and we are going to continue feeding the unit right after. Now, you wanna be careful to not hit the pit. So as I’m sewing, I’m gonna use my stiletto to keep my seam nice and flat. And when I get close to a pin, I’m going to slow my machine to make sure that my needle does not hit the pin. Now, I know I’m probably get some sewing machine shops yelling at me but, if you’re careful you will not hit that pin. And I’m going to finish with another piece of scrap fabric. Now if you had multiple units, you would just continue sewing those multiple units, chain piecing. And we’ll show you how to do that in a different segment. I’m gonna clip that off, and I can then take my pins out. There we go. And I’m gonna cut my starter off.  I like my very patriotic scissors.

And, viola! A nice perfect point.