Queen Bee

It’s my turn to be queen of the hive over at Sew & Bee Happy.
August seemed to be so far away and now here it is staring me in the face…


What I have in store for my online quilting buddies is a bit of paper piecing.
There are many tutorials for paper piecing that go into much better detail than I am able to…
http://www.caroldoak.com/weblog/?p=928
http://artisania.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/learning-to-paper-piece/
http://www.quilterscache.com/StartQuiltingPages/startquiltingthree.html

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SNB MEMBERS:
The block that I’ve chosen is this Kaleidoscope Block (printed from my Sew Precise software). 
This first picture shows the general colour scheme.
The block can be scrappy, just keep within the general colour scheme of

Light blue, mid blue, light grey and dark grey.

Mosiac of the Kaleidoscope quilt block

Here is the link for the pattern:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4rAKxGHRX39MS1HdC00VTV4TFk


You will need to Download the file to get it to print at the right size. These are the steps:

1. The above link will take you to a page that is headed “KaleidoscopeUpload for SBH”
2. Click on “File” and a dropdown menu will appear.
3. Near the bottom of the list, click on “download”
4. Print the page 4 times. Paper from your printer is fine.
5. The side of triangle ‘5’ on unit “G” should measure very close to 3.5” (don’t worry if it is barely under or over…only worry if it’s closer to 3.25” or 3.75”…which hopefully it won’t be!)

I’ve only given you the pattern for two of the wedges because it would have meant joining several smaller pieces to make the other wedges (and I wouldn't put myself through that - yet alone you lovely ladies!). Just make 4 of each wedges as shown below – one is labelled Unit G (made up of 5 triangles and the other has no label (but when I printed it off I hand wrote "4 UNIT WEDGE" on it) and consists of 4 triangles.

Cut out each wedge just past the dotted line (seam allowance) – don’t cut the solid line – that’s your sewing line!

SEWING THE PIECES
Pretend the paper is like a piece of fabric – the right side of the paper is the writing side and the wrong side is the blank side.
Place the first colour – labelled ‘1’ behind the paper, so that the wrong side of the paper and the wrong side of the fabric are together.
I use repositionable glue to hold it in place…it’s ok to iron over because it doesn't stick to the fabric and when you eventually tear the paper away, the glue goes too! -  I just don’t put it near the stitching lines in case it gums up the needle.

Take fabric “2” and put it right sides together with piece “1”
In this picture the medium blue is fabric ‘1’ and the dark grey is fabric ‘2’

Sew with a short stitch and a sharp needle (a jeans needle is good) on the paper side, following the solid stitching line, marked between piece “2” & “3”. Do a back stitch at the beginning and end of each line.

If you want some help working out where the seam line is put pins through the corners. Where they come through you can see there is enough fabric left for a good 1/4” seam allowance. Another trick some quilters use, is to hold the it all up to the light, so you can see if there is the proper seam allowance.

When you’ve finished the first seam, fold the paper out of the way, run your nail along the stitching line to help perforate the paper, but don’t remove it till after the entire block is sewn.

Take your ruler and trim the seam to 1/4”… this ruler I have has a fabulous 3/16” mark which is a touch smaller and neater than the1/4” – but go with what you’ve got.

Just follow the above steps for adding pieces 3 and 4 to the "4 triangle" wedges and pieces 1 to 5 for the "G - 5 triangle" wedges.
Here are the first two that I’ve made, one of each of the wedges.

I’ll put up the finished block in the next few days.


One of the reasons it's taken so long to get this going is that the first colour scheme I went with looked so "blah", that I had to can the whole thing and start again...much happier now!


Thanks to all the Sew & Bee Happy members and I'll look forward to seeing your lovely scrappy creations in the coming month.

thanks for taking a peek over the fence...