City Line QAL - Week 1

It’s time!  The City Line QAL kicks off today.  For the next six weeks we’ll be sewing the City Line quilt.  I’ll break the pattern into six easy parts, one per week, to set an easy pace.  I’ll share tips and tutorials along the way here on the blog.

If you’re already registered and have your pattern, you’re all set.  You can skip ahead to the next paragraph.  If you still need to purchase the pattern, you can find the PDF download version here.  Registering gives you access to the bonus quilt sizes not included in the pattern and adds you to the email list to receive the links to the blog posts and tutorials so you don’t have to look for them every week.  You can register for free here.

QAL Week 1 - Cut fabric

This week, skip over page 1 to the cutting instructions on page 2.  The pairing and numbering of fabrics can wait until next week (unless you have already done that, in which case, yay you!).  The labelling of fabrics won’t affect how many strips of each fabric you need, as you cut the same number from each fabric.  In adition to the instructions in the pattern, read on for extra guidance, tips, and links to helpful tutorials.

Cutting Non-Background Fabric

When cutting the strips of non-background fabrics, pay particular attention to two things.

1. Make sure the strips are straight.

Cut the strips to avoid an angle or bend in the middle.  You need all the strips to fit together smoothly. A bend in any of them would interfere with that.

For guidance on how to avoid the bend, refer to my new tutorial on cutting strips.

2. Cut all the strips to the same length. 

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.

I know it’s tempting to sew strips together willy nilly, then trim the sewn unit to size, but that could introduce some bowing in the strip set. We won’t be sub-cutting these sets into smaller units, so there will not be any opportunity to mitigate bowing in the strip sets at that step, as there often is when cutting strip sets into smaller units. Starting with strips exactly the same length is key to keeping things straight now so you have have straight units to make your center panel later.   Also, the strip sets will become columns, and you need them all the same length unless you plan to redo all the math for the background pieces.

I prefer to cut the strips to length right after cutting them, before I unfold them.  Refer to my new tutorial about cutting strips longer than your ruler for guidance on measuring long strips.

Cutting Background Fabric

Cut Wide borders (B and C)

The top and bottom borders may be wider than your ruler, especially if you are making one of the larger bonus sizes of the quilt.  This tutorial shares how I tackle those wide cuts.

These come up first in the cutting chart, even though they get used last when assembling the quilt,  because I like to cut the largest parts first.  If I goof there, I can cut smaller parts from the large oops parts, and hopefully be able to recut the miscut part from the remaining fabric. 

Cut setting pieces (D to J)

As much as possible, I cut pieces in decreasing size order, but there are exceptions.  To make most efficient use of fabric, I cut as many large pieces as possible from a strip, then find smaller pieces that can be cut from the remaining strip length.  Sometimes that means skipping a few in-between sizes, or cutting lots of smaller pieces individually here and there instead of all at once from one strip. To save you the trouble of figuring this out, I have added a cutting diagram to the cutting instructions in the pattern showing which pieces D to J can be cut from each background strip.

You’ll notice that it ends up skipping from D directly to F in one strip, and from E to H in another, and that not all H are cut at once.  It’s not a problem.  The important part is to end up with the correct number of each piece in the end.  

Also note that my cutting charts and diagrams are based on 40" width of fabric.  If your fabric is wider, you might be able to squeeze additional parts from some strips and reduce the total number of strips you need to cut.

I recommend labelling the different size setting pieces for quick identification when you need them later. You can use fancy alphabet clips.  You can grab a sharpie and label some wonderclips.  You can do what I do and just cut up squares of scrap paper, write the part labels on them, and pin them to the top of each stack of parts. (Now that I've thought of the sharpie/wonderclip combo, I might do that next time.  It's not like I can't use the clips for binding just because they have letters on them!)

That’s all for this week.  Go forth and cut fabric!  We’ll reconvene next Monday to start sewing.

Happy sewing,

Joanne

Fabrics from White Owl Textiles