Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Year of the Snake Quilt - Making the Background


In honor of the Year of the Snake (which also happens to be the year my husband was born!), I started on an appliqued quilt.  For the next few blogs, I'll take you through how I did this - today I'm working on the quilt's background.

When I'm making a pieced background, the first thing I do when is to draw a very rough sketch of the background. This is just a draft and, as you'll see, it can be changed!


The next step is to tape enough pieces of newspaper together to make it the size of the quilt.  For this quilt, I divided the quilt into quarters, with the two top quarters being reverse images of each other and the two bottom quarters also being reverse images of each other.  So this time I only needed to make two newspaper pieces that were the size of one quarter of the quilt back - in this case 22 x 30 inches.  For the top quarter, I used a Sharpie to draw the pieces in.


To make sure the pieces went together in the right order, I wrote the same symbol on the two seams that need to be sewn together - I use capital letters.  The pieces can then be cut apart.  For one of the quarters, the pattern is used right side up - for the other quarter, turn the patterns upside down so you will get a mirror image.


Next, I pinned each newspaper pattern to fabric and cut them out - NOTE:  when cutting the edges that will be sewn to other edges, add 1/4 inch for a seam allowance.


I then sewed the pieces together using a 1/4 inch seam.  Here's the finished top half.


Next I drew the pieces for one of the bottom half quarters.


After the two quarters were sewn together (and again, for the second quarter I turned the pattern upside down when pinning it to the fabric so I would get a mirror image and also added a 1/4 inch seam allowance to each edge that would be sewn to another piece) I played with how I wanted to put them together.  I liked this arrangement - different from how I sketched it.  I like how all the panels roughly lead to the same place.


And here's where I am!  On Monday, I'll show you the making of the appliques and how I put them on.


Happy Creating!  Deborah

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