City Line QAL - Week 4

City Line pattern available here

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

It's time to vary the vertical position of the columns and assemble the base panel.  

Add Background Setting Pieces

Turn to page 5 of the pattern.

Refer back to Week 2 when you paired your strips and put them in order.  Arrange your strip sets in that order again.  Only 8 of the fabrics in the photo below are labelled because I chose to just repeat that arrangement and I could use the labelled columns as reference.

Thank you to White Owl Textiles for sending me
 these fabrics from their Fundamentals collections. 
Scroll to the bottom of this post for additional fabric details.

Now refer to the table and the diagrams on page 5 to see which background setting pieces to add to each column.  I chose to put the pieces up on my design wall above or below the column they belong with so I could quickly grab columns and setting pieces to sew together.  That's completely optional.  You could just as easily grab a column, consult the table and diagram on page 4 to choose the appropriate setting piece, and head directly to the sewing machine.

When sewing a background piece to a column, I recommend sewing with the column on top.  This way you can see the stitching that forms the point of the column and can make sure your new seam intersects the point so you don't inadvertently blunt the point.

I slow down here and aim for where the previous lines of stitches intersect.

Let's check that the point didn't get cut off by the new seam.

Looks good!  Repeat to add setting pieces to all the columns. 

This is starting to look like the cover design!

Assemble Column Into a Panel

To wrap up this week's tasks, turn to page 6 and complete Step 1, sewing the columns together into a panel.  I recommend marking centers, matching ends, and pinning as you did when you made the strip sets in Week 2.  You can review the pinning tutorial if you need to.

Pay attention to the pressing directions.  Pressing to the left is equivalent to pressing towards the even-numbered fabrics again.  When the panel is done, seams will alternate directions.  This will be important to spin seams next week.

That's all you need to do from page 5 this week.  We'll save the magic part for next week!

How are things going so far?  Any questions?  Ask in the comments of send me an email.

Happy sewing,

Joanne

Fabrics for my version contributed by White Owl Textiles

City Line QAL - Week 3

City Line pattern available here

Week 1

Week 2

Last week we sewed the strip pairs that will become the columns. This week things start taking shape, literally, as we give shape the ends of the columns.

Turn to Step 3 on page 4 of the pattern. That's all we're sewing this week, but all those stitch-and-flip corners will keep you busy!  For my favourite tips for stitch-and-flip success, check out this tutorial.

Here's what a corner should look like after you've added the background corner.

The background triangle (that's the grey in my quilt) covers the corner of one of the strips in the strip set.  Notice that one point of the triangle extends slilghtly into the other strip.  That part will be in the seam allowance.  The red line in the photo below shows you the 1/4" seam allowance.  You can see the point will meet the seam between the strips once the seam allowance is swallowed by a seam later.

Also notice the trimmed scrap triangles cut out from under the corner.  Remember to trim those as you go.  Don't wait until after you add the triangle to the other corner, because that new stitching will cross this first triangle.  Trimming under that first corner will be tricky of you've already sewn over it when adding the seond corner triangle (see that tutorial I linked above for an illustration).

Repeat on another corner...

...and voilà!  You have a lovely pointed end.  See below how the point is centered on the seam between the strips?

Repeat on the other end of the strip set, then on the rest of the strip sets, and you're well on your way to creating the City Line design.

Thank you to White Owl Textiles for sending me
 these fabrics from their Fundamentals collections. 
Scroll to the bottom of this post for additional fabric details.

Aren't they pretty, all together?  Don't sew the columns together yet though!  We have more work to do.  See you next week!

Happy sewing,

Joanne

PS:  It's not too late to join in this six-week quilt-along.  Purchase the pattern (if you don't already own a copy) then follow along with the weekly blog posts I'll publish every Monday.  If you'd like to have the links delivered directly to your inbox to avoid having to search for them, or if you'd like to make one of the bonus sizes (twin, full, queen or king) currently exclusive to the QAL, you can register for free here.

Fabrics for my version contributed by White Owl Textiles

City Line QAL - Week 2

City Line pattern available here

Week 1

Welcome to Week 2 of the City Line QAL. Last week we cut fabric.  This week’s task may seem short, but I recommend lots of pinning for it.  Pinning always seems to take forever, so I decided it was enough work for one week.  After all, I promised an easy pace!

Sort the Strips

First, flip back to page 1 of the pattern and sort your eight colour fabrics from dark to light as described in the lower right quarter of the page,

Thank you to White Owl Textiles for sending me
 these fabrics from their Fundamentals collections. 
Scroll to the bottom of this post for additional fabric details.

Next pair each darker fabric with a lighter fabric.  Since you’ve already cut your strips, you can put one strip of each fabric up on your design wall, or simply lay them on a table, and shuffle them around until you like the pairs.  Just remember that each pair needs contrast, and keep the darker fabric in the pair on the left.

You can see I did not adhere strictly to the instruction to pair each of the four darkest to one of the four lightest.  My darkest was much darker than the darkest light fabric, and I didn't want quite that much contrast, so I shuffled things a little more. I ended up using my darkest dark and fourth darkest dark together, and the darkest light became a "dark" paired with the lightest light.

All to say, just go ahead and shuffle those fabrics until you have an arrangement that you like, keeping the darker fabric in each pair on the left.  Also, I chose to repeat each fabric pair three times to use up all 24 strips, but you could shuffle all 24 strips for more varied pairs.  

I recommend pinning a numbered label to each strip to keep track of your fabrics once you have them ordered as you like.  I just counted 1 to 8, and repeated.  If you chose to shuffle all 24 strips, you can label them 1 to 24 to keep track of their order.

Sew Strip Pairs

Now flip ahead to page 4 and proceed with steps 1 and 2.

Step 1 is where all the pinning happens.  Matching the ends and the centers of the strips is key to ending up with a straight strip pair unit with nice even ends.  This will also help ensure all your strip pairs will be the same length, which will result in a clean, straight panel later.  Refer to this tutorial for more guidance on matching and pinning strips.

Step 2 is short but important.  Pay attention to the pressing directions. Paired with other pressing direntions in Week 4, these will allow you to nest and spin seams in the center pieced strip.

Here are my strip pairs, all sewn, with seams pressed towards the even-numbered fabrics, ready for next week.

I'm excited to see what your pairs look like.  Did you make eight pairs and repeat, or did you shuffle all the fabrics in more combinations?  Remember you can share on social media (make sure to mention the City Line QAL in your post or #citylineqal), you can email me, or you can share in the Quilting With Canuck Quilter Facebook group.

Happy sewing,

Joanne

PS:  It's not too late to join in this six-week quilt-along.  Purchase the pattern (if you don't already own a copy) then follow along with the weekly blog posts I'll publish every Monday.  If you'd like to have the links delivered directly to your inbox to avoid having to search for them, or if you'd like to make one of the bonus sizes (twin, full, queen or king) currently exclusive to the QAL, you can register for free here.

Fabrics for my version contributed by White Owl Textiles