The Seam Allowance

In my last post I asked what books are good for the beginning quilter, specifically a quilter who’s interested in free-piecing.

I haven’t seen most of the books you all recommended, but one  caught my attention: Robin Strobel’s The Casual Quilter. Love the attitude. Read a review of the book here.

Anyway, the whole post got me thinking about what really is important to know about quilting. If you’re a quilter who’s not interested in accuracy, are there times when you do need to pay more attention than others?

Here are my thoughts on the Seam Allowance. I was going to say this was what you need to know if you are a liberated quilter, but I’m not sure what Gwen Marston would actually think about this – I wouldn’t want to make her cry. This is my take on the whole thing.

First off, is a quarter inch seam all that important? Yes and no. Fabric frays and if there isn’t enough whole fabric left in that seam allowance, then the seam could split open. Not something you want happening to a finished quilt.

So a quarter inch has been settled upon as an amount that will hold your quilt together. Does it have to be EXACTLY a quarter inch? No. You want it to be closer to that width than not but don’t pull your hair out.

Here I am sewing fabric together. I have a quarter inch presser foot and I aim the edge of my fabrics to the edge of the presser foot.

When I’m finished I hopefully end up with straight line of stitching a quarter inch from the edge of the fabrics:

When I open it up, the fabrics lay fairly flat and the edges are straight:

This time I bobbled a bit:

The seam isn’t straight. When I opened it up and ironed it, I had a bit of puffiness in places, but for the most part it worked fine. In fact, I accidentally deleted the “after” picture because it looked the same as the straight seam. So no big deal.

But this time, got a carried away and really curved the seam:

And when I opened it up? Eek, wouldn’t lay flat:

Now, I could force it flat by ironing in a pleat but it would probably cause fewer problems in the long run to just redo it.

Oops, now this time I didn’t end up with a quarter inch on both pieces of fabric.

The black fabric is decidedly short. What to do? For a baby quilt or something else that is going to get a lot of use and washing, I’d redo the seam. For a wallhanging that will get very little washing? If there was at least an 1/8” in the seam allowance, I'd probably leave it as is add a few drops of Fray Check  if I were worried. In the picture above? That’s too narrow at the bottom even for me, so I’d redo it. sigh.

This time I’ve got the seam straight, but it’s at an angle:

Opened up, it looks like this:

I’m lazy, but this just isn’t going to work.

Now, if you’re at the stage where you’re first joining pieces together in something like a crumb quilt or free-pieced houses, then you can just straighten up the edges like so:

See, perfectly useable. [Note: You don’t have to actually cut the edges to make them straight. you could just make sure the next fabric is sewn on straight. If that doesn’t make sense, don’t worry about it for now.]

BUT -- and it is a big BUT – trimming straight  doesn’t  work when you are sewing fabric together for a border. And you very well may not want to do it when you’re sewing two finished blocks together because you are going to lose some of the blocks.

To sum up an angled seam: okay when first joining bits together, but bad later on…

So you’re a free-piecer and you have a lot of blocks made and all trimmed to the same size. It helps to have a consistent seam allowance when you put all those blocks together. Using the same presser foot for all those joins will help.

Depending on how casual you are about these things, it still might not be that big of a deal to get everything together consistently. Just add a bit of something to make all the blocks fit together, like I did when putting together my Margarita Quilt center.

I cut all of these blocks to the same size. Truly. At least I think I did. But I ended up with some rows longer than others. I added extra orange fabric to one unit of joined rows to make it long enough to fit together:

My other option would have been to join the two sections together and then whack off the bits that were too long.

On a side note, no still don’t have a border on this quilt center yet. Can’t decide if I should just add a wide border (my original plan) or add a wordy border.

That sums up my thoughts on the seam allowance. What do you think? Any questions? Anything in there confusing? What did I forget to mention?

By the way, I wrote this post in Windows Live Writer – thanks for the recommend Sassenach. For the most part it’s easier to use than posting straight into Blogger. The big question is, how does it look once it’s posted….

Blue and Turquoise Zigzag

This is the other lapquilt that I made in Cairo after discovering just how cold it can get there.I kept the color scheme low key since this was a quilt for my husband. You remember him, he's the one who once called a pink, yellow, and orange color scheme I was working on "egregious." His shirts are black, white, gray, navy blue or dark green. So this palette is a stretch for him, but at least it didn't make him cry and refuse to use it. Hee hee hee.

So this is the Blue and Turquoise Zigzag quilt.

Baby Pokey taking a nap:

I continue to have a hard time focusing on a project. I sorted through boxes of old papers and photos and got rid of two garbage bags full. I suspect I'll do it again and be even more brutal.

Here's a question for you all. Can you recommend a quilting book or online tutorial to someone who's going to teach herself or himself to quilt? Since we're starting at the very beginning let's focus on piecing.

What is the best book/tutorial for teaching yourself to hand piece?

What is the best book/tutorial for teaching yourself to machine piece?

What is the best book/tutorial for learning to use a sewing machine?

I'm looking for something basic that doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about things like accuracy - you know how much I hate that. If someone wants to be a liberated quiltmaker what do they actually need to know? I've looked through some things and boy, there's so much information that is uptight and not that necessary... So maybe a book for kids where you just want them to get interested and who cares about perfection. Any thoughts?

By the way, I have to say Blogger is making me very cranky. Just can't get spacing into the part of my blog that comes after photos. ggggggrrrrr.

Île de la Cité

We had a glorious day of Indian Summer on monday. It was 63 but felt a lot warmer to me. I was just wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt but everyone else was bundled up. I took a walk along the Seine to enjoy the sunshine. I don't remember it being cloudy, but obviously it was.

Île de la Cité. I stitched together three photos to get this panorama shot. Theoretically it will enlarge when you click it.

This morning I got out my crumby top that I made with Bonnie way back in January 2007. The quilt she made at the same time is stunning and there's no way I can compete with her border. So I'm just adding a patterned fabric. But first I had to try and straighten up the center. I don't get crazy about it - I don't have to have a perfect square or rectangle, but I do like to add the borders on straight on each side. Well this poor top has definitely stretched out with me holding it up by the corners to show it off. Trying to get straight edges has been... interesting.

I'm trying to get several projects finished up with backing fabrics. Some will be long-armed, and others will go with me so I have stuff to work on in Florida when I get there in January.

I've got a question for ya'all. I need to get a backing pieced for my Jumbo Margarita quilt. It's got white fabric in it. Am I going to get myself into trouble using heavily patterned/dark fabric on the back? I'm worried about it showing through to the top.

You've been very helpful answer the question To Mac or Not to Mac. I'm going for it. Or at the very least I'm going to make an appointment at the Apple Retail Store to really give it a test drive. I didn't realize just how much was available at their store, such as the personal shopper and one-on-one training. Very cool.

Late to the Party

I really enjoyed seeing Calamity Kim's Halloween movies, so I thought I'd show you mine.

One movie is missing. I managed to break Shaun of the Dead yesterday as I wrestled it out of its packaging. boohoo! I don't care about high definition this or that, I just want indestructable DVDs. I broke Terminator earlier this year. Don't know my own strength.

I didn't even watch any of these this year. I've been continuing on the Buffy kick. Buffy's award at the end of The Prom episode made me cry.

I want to show you the fabric I picked out for the Peace and Plenty quilt for my mom and dad. Now if Lily would just get out of the way...

This quilt will be a mix of hand-dyes and commercial prints. Not sure all of these will get used, but it helps to have an assortment to choose from.

Enough contrast?

On a completely different topic, I'm thinking of switching to a Mac computer. I've never actually used one, but lots of things about it appeal to me. I don't have any PC programs that I really use, except for Upwords and I'll still be able to do that easily. Anybody made the switch and hated it? Any words of advice?

Peace

Sorry, I have been really unfocused lately. I keep jumping from one thing to another and not getting anything done. My brain hasn't been on quilting, it's been on moving. At least I've been handquilting lots - that always soothes me, especially when I'm feeling scattered like this.

I started on a quilt that I'm supposed to be making as a gift for my mom and dad. Little bit late for a Thanksgiving quilt this year but maybe I can get it done for 2009. aiyee. Here are a couple of PEACEs that I've made. These units are about 4.5" high.

For me, that's big letters - don't like making them this large. The HOME letters in the last post were my usual size - 3.5" high.

I've been really concerned with the color scheme on this quilt. My mom asked for scarlet, gold, rust and burgundy. I decided it needed more contrast so I've added in a few accents, such as the deep Cherrywood violet in the top pic. I'll show you all the fabrics in another post.

They sell these Ruby Beholder things to quilters so that you can look through it as you work to see if you have enough contrast. Yup, that top peace looks good, the other one not so much.

But that's why you should never just use the red filter. It doesn't work well with colors in the red family. With the green one I get this:

So so far so good. Still think it's a bit dark though so going to keep a close eye on things. Assuming I get back to work on this anytime soon. As I said, problems focusing...

Halloween here was a complete bust. At least I wasn't excited about it so never got my hopes up like I did last year.

My sweetie and I finished Eureka Season 2 last night. I don't love love love it the way I do Pushing Daisies, but I really like it a lot. The character of Sheriff Jack Carter really grew on me - he seems more relaxed and comfortable and goofy. Wish they'd get rid of the whole artifact subplot - boring. And Zane and Lucas? Blecky and boring. Been fun to see Stargate SG-1 actors popping up though. Hope we get more Daniel Jackson. Oops, the sculpture guy.

Really wish my house had a S.A.R.A.H. She cooks and I bet cleans somehow too. My husband just wants the beer that comes on tap in the fridge.

Speaking of Stargate SG-1 actors, has anyone caught Sanctuary with Amanda Tapping (Samantha Carter)? It sounds interesting yet horrible all at the same time.

And since I mentioned Pushing Daisies earlier, I'm going to mention that one again. I love this show. It has a knitting detective, great clothes, scenery, eye candy. The actors are amazing. It's original and fun. Please give it a try. And if you have a Nielson box, I'll pay you a dollar to watch it every week. ;-)

If I'm not enough to convince you, then try reading Why Pushing Daisies is the Best TV Show You're Not Watching.

I've got a bonus for quilters who've made it this far in the post. No, not just a pic of Pokey

but a link to gorgeous Amish quilts from the collection of Stephen and Faith Brown. They are so amazing. My favorite, at least for today, is the Crazy Star from Arthur, IL.