Civil War Crossing Quilt Tutorial, Part Two

Preparing the Foundation

First, to download the foundation, visit this page on my website and open the pdf. 

When I am making quilts from Miniatures in Minutes, I always use translucent vellum paper (see here).

I use it for a number of reasons.  One reason is that with this technique, it is very useful to see through the foundation.  Another, and this is important, is that because I am placing multiple patches at once, I use little dabs of glue to secure the patches to the paper.  After the foundation is sewn and it’s time to remove the paper, I wet the paper in order to release the glue.  Vellum takes this quite well.  The paper holds its integrity while wet/damp and is easy to tear off. 

Not so for printer/copier paper.  Once you wet it, printer paper will turn into a sodden mess that is a pain to tear off and leaves way too much residue at the stitch lines. 

There is, however, a problem with vellum as well: you must use a laser printer/copier with it.  Ink jet ink will rub off the vellum onto your fabric. 

With these little X blocks, however, I realized that I could place the glue dots such that I never glued fabric to paper and therefore didn’t need to wet the paper to release glue.  While I still think it is preferable to use vellum (so you can more easily see through the paper), you can use printer paper.  You will just need to use a light box in order to see through the paper.

Whew, that was a lot of explanation (which probably most of you didn’t need – sorry). 

So, first step: print the foundation onto either vellum (preferred) or printer paper (will work).

Cut the blocks into four separate units.  Here’s one.

Place the foundation on either a white background or a light box (essential if you used printer paper) with the printed side facing down.

Now, fold over the foundation so that you are very exactly lining up two adjoining seam lines.  Fold and crease the paper sharply.  (It is important that you be exact here: this is what allows the perfect alignment that happens like magic when you sew the foundation).

Repeat for the other seam adjoining seam.

On the non-printed side of the foundation, line up the quarter inch line on your ruler along the far left seam line.  Using a red extra fine line permanent marker (I use Sharpies), draw a line alongside the ruler.  (Why use red?  Because when you flip the foundation over to sew, it would be confusing to have an assortment of black lines to choose from).  This line marks the edge of your seam allowance. 

Draw another seam allowance line after the second seam line.

That’s it, your foundation is now ready to sew.

Civil War Crossing Quilt Tutorial, Part One

Part One: Cutting the Fabric for the Blocks

Part Two: Preparing the Foundation

Part Three: Sewing the Blocks

Part Four: Putting the Quilt Together

Anyone familiar with my book Miniatures in Minutes knows that I was inspired by the Fold and Sew technique developed by Anita Grossman Solomon.  (Check out her Make it Simpler website – she developed a revolutionary method of paper-piecing that truly does make it much simpler!)  I’ve spent several years now playing around with how her paper-piecing technique can be applied to miniature quilts. 

This last year, Anita came out with a book looking at yet more revolutionary ways to make quilt making simpler: Rotary Cutting Revolution.  (Check out the Google Preview that gives you a great idea of how many different blocks the book covers). 

If you go here, you can see a video of Anita on The Quilt Show demonstrating how she cuts fabric for the Old Italian Block.  I changed the size of the squares, used three fabrics instead of tw0, and once again used my version of her Fold and Sew technique to make a miniature block: it finishes at 2" square.

Let’s begin with cutting the block.  Since I am a gadget loving girl, I recommend this cutting mat.  It is small and revolves in a circle which makes cutting these blocks very easy.  Any little mat, however, that you could spin as you cut will make this easier. 

To begin, choose three fabrics, one dark, one medium, and one light.  Stack them and cut a 4 1/4" square.  Then place your layered squares on the mat so that the corners of the square match the diagonal cross lines on the mat.

Lay the half-inch mark on your ruler along a diagonal line and cut.

Rotate the mat a quarter turn and once again make the same cut.  Rotate the mat two more times so that you make a total of four cuts.  When you move your fabrics apart, you’ll see this:

(Anita Grossman Solomon is a genius!)

Now take your fabrics and mix and match.  You’ll have the pieces for three blocks.

You could either mix and match your blocks for one quilt (four sets of three fabrics would give you 12 blocks) or decide to make up more than one quilt.

If you want more traditional cutting methods that allow you to cut only what you need for one block, then here are those directions.   The measurement for the center square is exact but the crossing strips and triangles are a little larger than you need (they’ll be trimmed to size later).

• Center Square: cut one 1" square
• Crossing Strips: cut four 1" by 2"
• Triangles: cut one 3" square, slice diagonally twice.

Your square will look like this:

Here’s the pieces lined up ready to sew:

Whichever method you choose, you will need a total of twelve blocks for the quilt as shown. 

The link to the foundation will be given in Part Two of this series.

What a Mess!

Look at that sewing table!  Good Lord, what was I thinking?

I know what I’m thinking now – that’s a heck of a lot of folding and sorting I’ve got ahead of me!  I think this may just set a new standard for messy sewing.  All to make up these little guys:

 

Pulling out the Civil War reproduction fabrics to make up the Barbara Brackman sampler block just so put me in the mood to play a little more with my reproduction fabrics.  And while I am going to love, I’m sure, the Brackman sampler, I am definitely hungry for more instant gratification.  Just what a mini is made to deliver!

I think I’ll have the top on this done up tomorrow – with instructions (if I can figure out how to create the pdf I’d like). 

Meanwhile, it’s still winterish here.  Not so bad as it was last week though.  I lucked out.  My own true love took last week off work so he got to take Mr. Rambunctious out for walks during the really frigid weather.  But now Jeff’s back to work and I’m back on dog duty.

Cooper, of course, loves this weather.  Can I just say, I love this newest member of the family?  What a sweetie he is.  Look at that darling face.

Of course, most of the time when he’s on the walk, he looks like this, ears flapping cause he’s on the move:

Or showing a great recall since he  knows I’ve got a treat in my pocket.

And only sometimes, like this, so serious and thoughtful.

Of course, he’s still good at getting into trouble, too.  We’re having heart to heart talks about his jumping and the fact that he still thinks the world is just one big chew toy.  That’s small potatoes though.  The important thing is he’s got great, great heart.  We are so lucky to have him with us!