City Line QAL - Week 6

City Line pattern available here

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

How did the slicing go last week?  This week will be less stressful, I promise!  Well, unless you dislike sewing sashing and borders.   It's not my favourite task, but I still think it's less stressful than cutting apart what I've already sewn.

Add Sashing

Starting at Step 7 on page 6, measure and insert the sashing.  To measure sashing that stretches across the width of the quilt, I lay the sashing strip directly across the middle of the rows and mark the length directly on the quilt.  It's the same technique as I use to measure borders.  In this case I measured on the pieced strips, and checked the measurement against the width of the top and bottom sections.

I forgot to take a picture of measuring with the strips, but the red arrows in the picture below show you where I measured.

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.

To sew the sashing, I found it easiest to sew both sashing strips to the pieced center strip first.  I matched centers and ends and pinned here again as I shared in the pinning tutorial I shared in Week 2.

Make sure you put the pieced strip back between the top and bottom sections right side up.  When it's oriented properly, the center square at the left end of the strip will be Fabric 1, matching the leftmost fabric in the top and bottom sections.

Now sew the top and bottom panels to the sashed center strip.  To make sure the vertical seams in the panels and center strip align, you can mark the sashing as explained in my "Matching Seams Across Sashing" tutorial.  

Instead of making marks showing the position of the sides the vertical sashing, mark the position of each vertical seam in the center strip.

Match the seams in the panels with those marks.

Here's the quilt center ready for borders.  It's straight, I promise, even if the photo isn't!

Add Borders

Measure and sew side borders, then top and bottom borders, as directed on page 7 of the pattern.  If you're making the alternate sizes, ignore the strip widths in the border instructions.  Refer to the cutting table to identify which widths to use for each border.

I measure borders by laying border strips directly across the quilt and marking the length directly on the strip.  See my border tutorial for details.

Side borders added

Side borders added. Quilt top is complete

I'm always excited to finish a quilt top!  This top will join the queue waiting to be quilted, but I think I'll quilt it the same way as the pattern cover quilt.  Scroll down near the bottom of this post to see how I quilted that version with my walking foot.

I hopw you've enjoyed this QAL adventure.  I'd love to see your quilt, whether on social media or in my inbox.  Please share!

Happy sewing,

Joanne

Fabrics for my version contributed by White Owl Textiles

Matching seams across sashing

In a perfect world, piecing would be mathematically perfect every time, so that blocks and sashing in different rows always line up perfectly, even when there's sashing between rows.  My world is not perfect, and I have to make a little more effort to make sure things line up.

Red lines show alignment of the vertical sashing strips

The trick is to mark the sashing in the seam allowance, then match up seams with the marks.  Let's take a closer look.

Here are two vertically sashed rows of four-patch block.  The horizontal sashing between the rows is already sewn to one of the rows, ready to sew to the other row to complete the sashing.  Here's how to make the vertical sashing in the top row line up with the vertical sashing in the bottom row. 

Step 1:  Make reference marks in the seam allowance of the horizontal sashing.

On the part with horizontal sashing already attached, line up the straight edge of a ruler with one side of the vertical sashing, making sure the ruler is square with the horizontal.  Make a little mark right on the edge of the sashing where it will be hidden in the seam allowance. 

Repeat that for every side of every vertical sashing strip.

Step 2:  When setting the two rows together, right sides together, to sew the sashing to the top row, line up and pin every sashing seam on the top with the corresponding mark on the horizontal sashing. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the pinned pieces, but I did photograph the marks and the stitching being lined up.

Step 3:  Head to the sewing machine and sew with a 1/4" seam.

Step 4:  Press towards the sashing.  If you made your marks small enough, they are hidden in the seam allowance.

There you have it!  You have well-aligned sashing to help your piecing look crisp and tidy!

Happy sewing,

Joanne

The fabrics I used in this tutorial are scraps from my City Line QAL quilt.  White Owl Textiles generously contributed the fabrics for that quilt.  These scraps are from their Fundamentals collections Peppercorn and Stucco.

City Line QAL - Week 5

City Line pattern available here

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Are you ready to slice up a perfectly good pieced panel?  I'm not going to lie.  This is the part where I have to take a lot of deep breaths!

This week we'll be completing Steps 2 through 6 on page 6 of the pattern.

Here's where we left off last week:

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.

To measure and make the cut all the way across this panel, I cleared everything except my cutting mat off my table.  I spread the quilt on the table, letting the bottom of the panel hang off the side.

After confirming that the top of the quilt was straight and square with the sides, thanks to all my pinning, I used a 24" ruler and the first method described in my tutorial about cutting wide strips to cut away the top of the panel.  Did I double check the required measurement and my ruler position half a dozen times before wielding the rotary cutter?  Yes.  Yes, I did.  Take your time at this step.

Ta dah!  Two haves.

Now slice off a wide strip from the bottom half.  

These two cut carved out a strip from the middle of the panel.

Now slice that strip up.

Flip a couple of those skinny strips.

Sew those skinny strips back together.  If you pressed as the pattern directed, you should be able to nest the seams, as well as spin the seam intersections when you press.  Refer to my tutorial on nesting and spinning seams.  You'll probably want to peek at the one about spinning multiple intersections as well if you're not a habitual seam spinner.

Pressing and spinning after sewing two of the strips together, than adding the third strip, will make things easier.  I'm a big fan of pressing as I go.

Take a peek at my spun seams.  Aren't those little 4-patches in the seam allowances cute.  Enjoy them now before they end up inside the quilt!

That's it for this week.  It's not a lot of sewing, but that gut-check cutting was a little bit daunting so I gave myself an easy week.  Here's where I'm stopping until next week.

We'll wrap up next week with sashing and borders.  I can't wait to see your finished tops!

Happy sewing,

Joanne

Fabrics for my version contributed by White Owl Textiles

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