Sunday, April 25, 2010

Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt - Part 3

Here is version 2 of the Bird of Paradise Convergence quilt. I had better luck with this one in terms of getting the seams aligned and I do believe that a major part of that had to do with the way I cut my strips.

In the first version I did my cutting as per the instructions in Ricky Tims' book where you have your 2 sections of fabric with 2 pieces of fabric sewing together, the seam line is at the bottom and the right sides of the fabric are together - see picture below. You then cut narrowest strips to widest strips from the middle to the outside of the 2 sections of fabric that are laid out on your cutting table.

I had a hunch that with cutting such long strips that it is likely that there is some inaccuracy in cutting and I wanted to try a different method. So here are my fabrics laid out ready to cut as per the book. These are the wrong sides of the fabric, with the seam line at the bottom.

I then took the printed fabric on the right hand side and flipped it on top of the teal fabric and made a stack of 4 layers of fabric. The edge on the right hand side gets trimmed so that all edges are even.

Then from the right hand side I cut my strips narrowest to widest.

This is a key part in that you have to make sure that you flip the pieces in the correct order where the two inside strips are the narrowest one of each colour. Then next to the narrowest strip you place the second narrowest strip of the same colour.

You continue to work out until the fabric is back to the original layout before you started cutting. After interchanging the strips and sewing them together, I repeated the same process for the second set of cuts.

When I did this, I found that the seams aligned much closer and there was only slight variations. So next I have to decide on my borders and then figure out my applique design.

2 comments:

Sand and Sunshine said...

Wow, the change in shade of the orange creates quite a different look. Interesting how all your sewing trouble went back to cutting. Oh the wonders and joys of a rotary cutter. I'm so glad we quilters don't have to use scissors to cut strips anymore.

hetty said...

I think when you come over to my place for a paper piecing lesson, you will have to show me that cutting technique.