from the sewing machine of the
Imperfect Piecer (that's me!),
a tutorial using the value or basic die that is included with your Accuquilt GO! fabric cutter
I am not usually able to piece precisely - either my seam allowance is off a bit or I've cut the square just a bit smaller or larger. I don't have to worry about cutting the shapes properly with my GO! and I think I finally have my 1/4" seam allowance set. (I've only had my 'new' sewing machine about 1 1/2 years:))
Today's tutorial is how to cut and sew a
Heart block using the basic (value) die that came with the GO!
For reference this die cuts:
- Square-4 1/2" (4" finished)
- Square-2 1/2" (2" finished)
- Half Square-2" finished triangle (cuts four)
Besides not being able to easily piece accurately, I'm also admitting I'm a dork. To play around with the shapes and see what blocks I could make with the basic die, I cut several sheets of white paper. No pink or blue or red added, just white copy paper. Duh! It did the job, though:)
This block will be 8" unfinished, 7 1/2" unfinished.
You will need
from main 'heart fabric'
- 8 (2 1/2") triangles
- 2 (2 1/2") squares
- 1 ( 4") square
from background fabric
- 8 (2 1/2") triangles
- 2 (2 1/2") squares
Note: I try to be thrifty when using my fabrics, so I cut about a 10" square of my main '
heart' fabric, then strips to cut the additional squares and triangles
I laid my pieces in rows, then picked up all the triangles and chain-stitched them to save both time and all those little thread ends from having to be clipped.
This is a tip I learned from visiting Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville site - a wealth of knowledge and beautiful quilts!
After stitching the triangles, I pressed the seams open to avoid bulk , for all the other seams I pressed them flat then to one side.
In the picture above, you can see that I have stitched and pressed the triangle pairs, and stitched a 2 1/2" square to the top of a triangle pair. Make sure you have the triangle pairs with the square attached facing the heart!
This picture (above) shows the 3 sections across.
Two pair of triangles are sewn together for the top section
The triangle square units are sewn to each side of the 4" square for the center section
A 2 1/2" background square is sewn on each side of the remaining triangle pair unit.
Next, stitch the sections together. See how nicely the squares and triangle points fit together?
Here is a block I made using 4 of the
Heart blocks, using an Aunt Grace fabric.
Next time I will show you the border I am making for this block using the same basic die-
I hope to make a block or two a week using the basic die. Stay tuned! I have 3 projects going at the same time, I didn't plan on that, but it seems I keep finding things I just have to make;)
Please contact me if you have any questions or if you would like to see more blocks based on the value die featured here.
Thanks for stopping by!
