The Last Piece

2021 Block of the Month sneak peek

Subscriptions open October 31! We could all do with a smile- come and stitch a little ray of sunshine  

 

 

 

Coming Up Roses - Block Two

Hi everyone! Who's ready to start piecing their Block 2 pile? Don't worry if you're not, there's plenty of time to get yourself going. I know some people are still waiting for their fabrics to arrive - darn that pesky slow Covid post!

For each Block 2, you will need: 

• 4 squares of scrap
• 8 squares of contrast fabric
• 12 half-square triangles (or 6 squares cut in half on the diagonal)
• 4 stripe triangles

All the measurements are in the pattern. Scroll down to see my earlier posts for information about the Sew Along as well as size adjustments or Block 1. 

Cutting the triangles

First I wanted to talk about cutting the triangles. You can easily cut them from a square cut in half, or you can use a half-square triangle ruler. (Piecing the triangles onto a square and then cutting the square in half is NOT suitable for this block.)

My preferred method is to use a half-square triangle ruler. I have my own brand of ruler that's available here.

This enables you to cut half-square triangles from a strip up to 6 1/2" high. These rulers eliminate the need for the 7/8" on your triangle measurements, which saves you fabric - and one cutting step! They also give you a nice accurate cut with a blunt end that is easy to line up in the correct spot for piecing.

How to use a half-square ruler

I'm going to walk you through how to use a half-square ruler - mostly all brands work the same (I can't vouch for every single one!), and mine works the same way. Here is the strip with the ruler.

 

 

You will see that the dotted line at the top of the ruler is flush with the top of the strip. This is so that you don't have to cut that fabric. For the purposes of our triangles, the bottom of the strip will be on the 2 1/2" mark. If you ever want to use the ruler to cut another size half-square triangle, simply take the finished (sewn) measurement of the triangle - for example 4" - and add 1/2". You would cut your strip to 4 1/2" and that is where the bottom line would go on your ruler. You can cut the strip double, and you can cut several strips at once.

 

 

Here is what they look like cut - see the blunt top?

 

 

Piecing a half block

You need four of these half blocks to make one whole block.

 Scrap, contrast, triangle. 

Contrast, triangle.

Triangle.

 

 

When you have sewn the triangle to the side of the square, make sure to clip the "ears" off the triangle where needed for a neat finish. Then sew the three strips together to make a large half square triangle.

 

​It's ready to be pieced to the striped triangle.

 

Cutting the striped triangles

Cutting the striped triangle is outlined in the pattern, but I wanted to give you an option if you do decide to purchase my half-square ruler, so that you don't also need a 1/4" triangle ruler for this one quilt!

It's a bit of a cheat, but I cut my striped strips to be 5" wide. I then turned my ruler onto its diagonal end, and made sure that edge was straight along the strip. I then cut the triangle, using the tip that's at the top of the triangle to line my stripes up in the same place each time. 

 

 

This results in a triangle that is slightly larger than what you need. Find the centre of the diagonal edges and match them, then sew the too-large triangle to your pieced triangle. Square the whole square up to 6 1/2". This gives you a bit of leeway for making your points perfect.

 

 

MAKE SURE YOU READ THIS BIT!

Don't forget that if you cut your large triangles in this manner to get the stripes matching into the centre, your bias will be in the wrong place on your block. You need to be VERY careful when piecing and pressing so that you don't stretch your bias. 

If you want to use the half-square triangle ruler to cut your large triangles from the strip in the normal direction, you can just cut your strips to 6 1/2" wide.

 

Finishing the blocks 

Sew two pairs of half blocks together (carefully if you changed that bias!) and press. Then sew the two halves together to make a full block.

 

 

I have bought stripes in quite a few colours but, to be honest, when I made a few out of this stripe I'm thinking I might use the same stripe for all of them - it's such a nice colour. I'll make some other testers and see.

 

 Have fun everyone!

Coming Up Roses - playing with blocks

I’ve been having a little play with my Coming Up Roses blocks! I’m thinking a charcoal for the small border and the small triangles around the stripes...

Stay tuned for the post to piece your alternate blocks tomorrow!

How are you going? Have you made any blocks? All your blocks? Leave a comment and let me know! If you’re looking for any previous instruction or information about colours or changing the quilt size, just scroll down through the posts on this blog and you will find them all.

Want to make one? Come and join the Coming Up Roses Sew Along! We’re having a lot of fun. All you need is a copy of the pattern from my (now out of print) book Material Obsession Two or  available via pdf download at my website.

Christmas stocking pattern

I know, how can Christmas be approaching so quickly? Start stitching now and you'll be able to have stockings for everyone in your family before the big day.

 

 

This stocking is big enough for all the stocking stuffers but not so big it’s cumbersome!

Santa will love filling this one.

Pattern is available as a PDF pattern on the page after you pay and will also be emailed to you at the same time.

 

Coming up Roses - cutting from strips

Hi everyone! There are some fantastic and very fun fabric combos being pulled out for chopping up, and some beautiful border fabrics being used. I can't wait to see them start coming together!

Don't forget to post your progress in either the Facebook group, Sarah Fielke Sew Alongs, or on Instagram using the hashtags #sarahfielkesewalongs or #cominguprosesquilt. Or you can email me a pic of your fabrics or blocks so I can post it here on the blog!

I think most people I've seen so far are going down the route of using scraps and cutting single squares from them. If you want to be Speedy Gonzales though, there is another option.

Just remember, if you do choose to use the strip sewing method, you compromise the randomness of your quilt a bit. Even though you will need to sew quite a few different strip sets together, you will always end up with the fabrics in those strip sets in the same order in the quilt, they won't ever be random like a scrappy quilt is. But that's OK too if that's what you're after! 

To sew Block 1 using the strip set method, cut 2 1/2" strips from a bunch of your fabrics, and also from your contrast corner fabric. Bear in mind that you will get 17 strips of squares from each strip set, and that you need TWO sets with contrast squares and FOUR sets with contrast squares to make one block.

Depending on which size of the quilt you are making, that will mean making a different number of strip sets - and that also does narrow down how many different fabrics you will have in the "scrappy" sections of the blocks, as you need less for the smaller quilts.

These numbers are calculated off cutting strips from the full width of the fabric. You can use fat quarters but you may need to make a few more strip sets.

Throw and King Single 

• 100 strips of squares - make 6 strip sets
• 50 strips of squares with contrast fabric - make 3 strip sets

Queen

• 144 strips of squares - make 9 strip sets
• 72 strips of squares with contrast fabric - make 5 strip sets

King (original)

• 196 strips of squares - make 12 strip sets
• 98 strips of squares with contrast fabric - make 6 strip sets

​PLEASE make sure to test your 1/4" seam before you start sewing sets together! It's so easy when sewing this way for the sets to end up skinnier or wider than the 12 1/2" square you need them to be, and then its just a huge waste of time. Sew one set together, check it, and then cut the strips. Sew the next set, check it, and cut etc. to reduce the chance of a whole lot of sets that are the wrong width.

There are two strips of sets you need to make Block 1. One set will have 6 strips of fabric in a row like this - 

 

 

and the other will be exactly the same, except that you will have a strip of your contrast square fabric as the first and the last fabric, so at the top and bottom of this stack.

Start with the first fabric and stitch it to the second along the length. Take care not to pull or push the fabric through the machine, just let the machine do the work or the strips will stretch. You can pin if you like. 

Sew the third strip onto the second, but this time start AT THE OTHER END OF THE STRIP to where you started sewing the first one. Then the next in the other direction, and the next and so on. This will help you not to stretch the strips and end up with a piece that is out of shape. Press all the seams to one side carefully, and make sure there are no pleats in the seams by ironing from the back, and THEN ALSO from the front of the fabric.

Cut 2 1/2" stacks of squares across piece you just stitched. You will end up with 2 1/2" x 12 1/2" pieces of fabric with the squares already sewn together!

Do take note - if you sew the strips from the same strip set all into the one block, you will always have the fabrics in exactly the same places and this will create a block pattern that you don't really want for this quilt. Sew all your strip sets and cut them, and then mix the sets up before sewing the into blocks.

Have fun. 😊

Don't forget to show me how you're going! And tell your friends - the more the merrier! 😊

Coming up Roses - let's get started!

Hi everyone! I don't know about you, but I'm so excited to get started. A new quilt for my bed, yay!

The way this is going to work is that today I'm going to talk about making a scrappy quilt and I'll do a little walk through of making Block 1 as per the pattern, and then over the coming week I will put up some posts about choosing fabrics, the importance of the border fabric and a few other bits and pieces.

Tomorrow I will post instructions for making Block 1 from strip sets instead of single squares, and the difference that makes to your fabric choices, if that's how you want to go.

Make sure and check back in to the blog over the coming weeks as everything for the Sew Along will be posted here - there will only be reminders and alerts on social media.

If you want to see what everyone else is doing, you can either join the Facebook group - Sarah Fielke Sew Alongs - or use the hashtag #sarahfielkesewalongs or #cominguprosesquilt on Instagram. Make sure and use the tags if you post so everyone else can see your progress!

If you aren't on social media and would like to share your work with others, you can email me a pic  and I can share it on the blog for you! Half the fun of a Sew Along is being able to see other people's ideas.

If you are wanting to make the quilt smaller than the one in the original pattern, please scroll down a bit as there is a post about changing the sizes and how many blocks to make etc. for a throw, king single or queen bed.

Please note that to participate in this Sew Along, you will need a copy of the Coming Up Roses pattern - no measurements etc. will be posted here on the blog. It can be found in my book Material Obsession Two, or bought as a downloadable PDF here. 

 

Right let's sew!

If you are going to make the quilt according to the pattern, you will need to cut a LOT of squares. Like, a lot. I like quilts that are truly scrappy - I use bits and pieces of everything and I sometimes set myself a challenge to not use the same fabric twice.  

If you are going to make your quilt this way, cut a load of squares for the scrap part (you don't need to cut them all at once), and a pile of squares for the contrast square in the corner. 

The trick with making a quilt really scrappy is that you have to have a control. I'm going to post a bit more about that in the coming days, but for today here's an example. Here is my border fabric -

 

You can make a quilt as scrappy as you like, but the trick to keeping it from just looking like a big old mess of bits is the things that you keep the same.

In Coming Up Roses, those things are the corner squares in Block 1, the small triangles in Block 2, and then the colours or highlights that you pull from your border fabric to tie everything together.

My border fabric has a lovely pale green/blue for the background, so I have pulled some of those fabrics from my stash. There's white/off white, and five different shades of pink. There's a lovely peachy tangerine, orange and a mustard yellow. These are the colours that I have chosen to use for my scrap fabrics. 

That doesn't mean that I am going to try and find those EXACT colours. I have gone through my stash and my scrap bin, and pulled out everything that reads to my eye as those colours. There is no matching or worrying that one fabric is not quite the exact same tangerine as the one in the border. The best thing about a scrap quilt is that its make do - and if you make do without agonising too much over every choice, you will find that the jumble of things comes together in a satisfying unity in the end.

The fabric I chose for the contrast fabric (the four corners of Block 1 and then repeated in Block 2) is quite a soft choice in this quilt for me. In the original quilt, I used a bright blue fabric with little orange stars so that the pattern made by the contrast squares was quite noticeable. In this quilt, the pattern will still be noticeable but in a more subtle way, because the fabric I'm using is a woven, and therefore will have a different texture to all the quilting cottons, and it's also very plain, in contrast to all the other fabrics in the quilt which will be very patterned.

The other thing I'm going to do to hold the scrappiness together is to use either the lovely and quite unusual green of the butterflies, or the charcoal that is in the border fabric for the small border between the quilt top and the border fabric. I would like to find something close to that green as it's quite unusual... we'll see how we go as we progress. 

 

OK, let's start sewing! Block 1 is REALLY EASY. I know that a lot of you are experienced quilters and will find these blocks a doddle, but there are some beginners too so we will do a little walk through.

For each block, I highly recommend laying your fabrics out before you sew. It doesn't have to be a tedious process, just make sure that you don't have all one colour in one corner, or two of the same fabrics next to each other. And that you have your contrast fabric in the right place!

 

 ​If you are a beginner sewer, I also recommend that you test your seams before you start to sew. It's quite important that you use an accurate 1/4" seam for this quilt - the square blocks don't seem to matter so much, but you will have trouble making them fit your Block 2 with all the triangles if you aren't a bit careful with your sewing.

 

To test your seam, cut four 2 1/2" squares. Sew two pairs together, the sew the pairs together across the middle to make a square of four. Measure the square - it should measure 4 1/2" square. If it doesn't you might need to adjust your seam a bit.

When you're ready to sew your block, sew the first row of the block together from left to right (or right to left whatever you find easy!). Press the seams all to one side. Sew the next row and press all these seams in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION. I press my seams from the back, and then I turn to the front and press again to make sure there are no pleats where the pieces join.

 

When you're sewing the rows together, use the seams pressed in different directions to line up your points. They should click snugly together, and you can put a pin in to hold them in place if you like. 

Sew and press your seam either up or down. I press all the long seams in my blocks in the same direction, as it gives a nice flat professional looking finish to the rows of squares.

 

 OK, have fun everyone - check in tomorrow if you want to sew from strips!

 

 

2021 Block of the Month

Coming soon! The 2021 BOM sketch will be released on October 31 and subscriptions open the same day.

Material requirements and template orders available December 1.

First pattern drops January 31, 2021.

Coming up Roses size changes

Not everyone wants a king sized quilt! Not that I can imagine why… every time I set out to make a “small” one it always ends up huge.

None the less, below are the numbers of blocks, finished quilt size, and revised (although the amount for the scrappy parts of the blocks are approximate) material requirements for a throw, king single and queen sized quilt.

You will need a copy of the original quilt pattern, available either in my book, Material Obsession Two, or as a PDF download from my website, for all other measurements and instructions to make the quilt. The blocks, block measurements and border measurements all remain the same as in the original pattern for all sizes of the quilt, we are just changing the block numbers and layout.

The original quilt is a King Size, 7 blocks x 7 blocks plus borders for a finished size of 265cm (106”) square. When it’s on my king sized bed, the blocks are exactly the top of the bed, and the small and large borders hang over the sides.

 

 

Throw

New Layout - 5 blocks x 5 blocks, plus borders

Finished Quilt Size -  205cm (82”) square

Make 13 of Block 1, 12 of Block 2

• 2.2 m (2.4 yd) assorted scrap fabric for Blocks 1 and 2 and corner blocks
• 1.4 m (1.5 yd) striped fabric for Block 2 (based on cutting HSTs, not fussy cutting)
• 25cm (10 in) blue floral spot for Block 1
• 45 cm (18 in) total pink fabrics for Block 2
• 25 cm (10 in) fabric for Inner Border
• 1.85 m (2 yd) feature print for Outer Border and corner blocks
• 70 cm (28 in) binding fabric

 

King Single

New Layout - 4 blocks x 6 blocks, plus borders​

Finished Quilt Size -  175cm x 235cm (70” x 94”) 

Make 12 of Block 1, 12 of Block 2

• 2.1 m (2 1/4 yd) assorted scrap fabric for Blocks 1 and 2 and corner blocks
• 1.4 m (1 1/2 yd) striped fabric for Block 2 (based on cutting HSTs, not fussy cutting)
• 25 cm (10 in) blue floral spotted fabric for Block 1
• 45 cm (18 in) pink fabrics for block 2
• 25 cm (10 in) fabric for inner border
• 2.1 m (2 1/3 yd) feature print for outer border and corner blocks
• 70cm (28 in) binding fabric 

 

Queen

New Layout - 6 blocks x 6 blocks, plus borders

Finished Quilt Size -  235cm (94”) square

Make 18 of Block 1, 18 of Block 2

• 3.4 m (3 2/3 yd) assorted scrap fabric for Blocks 1 and 2 and corner blocks
• 1.1 m (1 1/4 yd) striped fabric for Block 2 (based on cutting HSTs, not fussy cutting)
• 35 cm (14 in) blue floral spot for Block 1
• 60cm (24 in) pink fabrics for Block 2
• 30 cm (12 in) fabric for Inner Border
• 2.4 m (2 2/3 yd) feature print for Outer Border and corner blocks
• 85 cm (34 in) binding fabric

 

So get your fabric ready, read through the pattern, and get ready to start sewing along with me on Friday 10 October!

Old Quilts New Life reprinted

Look what popped up in my Facebook memories!

 

 

Five years ago! Seems like yesterday. AND it’s just been reprinted, hooray! Pop over to my website for your copy.  

Stripes!

I found some lovely stripes for the Coming Up Roses Sew Along- what do you think?

I will make a sample block tomorrow! If you would like to join, you can find all the details in earlier posts.