The Pioneer Quilter

Episode 10 – Frugal Piecing, continued

There is a new addition to my wishlist:  a tile quilt!  See an example at Barbara Brackman’s website.  If you don’t follow Barbara’s blog and you are in to historical quilting facts…get with it and subscribe to her blog!

On to frugal quilt projects – piecing a potholder!  In episode 8 I talked about all of the pieces you would need to cut out.  I am sure you have them at the ready!  Here are the steps we will take now:

1) Take a light square and a dark square and place them right sides together.   Point a pin right at the upper left hand dot that you marked on the piece facing you.  Now push the pin through, and flip to the other side.  You are looking for the pin to exit from the upper right hand dot on the back piece.  If they don’t line up, adjust the placement of the pieces until you can get the pin to pierce both dots.  Then slide the pin into place.

Pin two pieces corner dot to corner dot

2) Now thread your needle.  Tie a small knot at the end of the thread.  Then, like with the pin, insert your needle in the upper right hand corner dot of the piece facing you, and get the end of the needle to puncture the dot on the back piece.  Then you will rock the needle to the side and take a small stitch.  Pull the thread through.

Make a small stitch right on the upper right hand dot

3) Re-insert the needle in between where the thread originally went in and came out – you are taking a backstitch.  Then work the needle in and out to load several stitches onto the needle and pull it through.  You want the stitches to be small…no larger than an 1/8th of an inch.  Whenever you pull the needle through, start again by taking a small back stitch.

4) When  you get to the pin, pull it out.  Don’t sew past the dot.  Your last stitch should go through the dot.  I do a small backstitch and pass the needle through the loop and pull it tight.  Then snip off the excess thread, leaving a small 1/4 inch tail.  I then finger pressed my seams toward the dark color.

5) Now add a third square to create a row.  You will create three rows – two with your first fabric at the ends, and one with your first fabric in the middle.

A whole row sewn together

6) To pin two rows together (make sure you pin the right two rows together…remember a nine patch has a checkerboard effect) lay the two rows right sides together.  Pin the upper left dot as we did for sewing two squares, then also pin the dots that are where the pieces meet.  If you finger pressed the pieces all correctly the seams should lock into place against each other.  Then sew across, just like for the single squares.  When you get to a seam allowance, don’t sew it down.  You are going to push the needle through to the other side of the seam allowance right on the dot and continue sewing.  Take back stitches on either side of the seam allowance.

Pinning two rows together

 7) End it just like a single piece – on the dot, with a loop knot.  Then open out the pieces.  To reduce bulk at corners you’ll want to flare out the seam allowance, as below:

Flare the corners out to reduce bulk

Now sew the other row in the appropriate place.  Look for the checkerboard!

Congratulations! You've got a nine patch.

Next time we’ll talk about quilting it!

Guest shot of Krypto the dog:

Krypto!