{"id":2959,"date":"2015-01-19T16:31:43","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T21:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2959"},"modified":"2015-01-19T17:08:11","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T22:08:11","slug":"fine-strips-in-pieced-quilt-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2959","title":{"rendered":"Fine Strips In Pieced Quilt Designs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathy Loomis’ blog<\/a><\/span> today referred a reader to her\u00a02010 tutorial on piecing very narrow lines<\/span>\u00a0into a background fabric, which for some time have been a feature of her work. \u00a0She’s not the only one who pieces narrow at times – Lisa Call<\/a>\u00a0,<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Margery Goodall<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Alicia Merrett<\/a><\/span>\u00a0 are among other well known quilt artists who produce great effects with very narrow lines pieced in. \u00a0 I know Margery well but have never watched her doing her machine piecing; \u00a0Kathy described her process in that post; and I have no accurate knowledge of the steps Lisa and Alicia use or in which order, but I would say that they all do the cutting and piecing in different order, and perhaps even with different equipment, as none of their works look like the other – and nor do they look like mine, either!<\/p>\n

When I first started to insert strips years ago, I worked out how to get them VERY even,\u00a0parallel,\u00a0usually about 1\/2″ showing on front, but worked down to narrower strips after a time, as in “Strip Lighting” \u00a01990 – <\/em>the strips range from \u00a01″, 3\/4″ , 1\/2″to 1\/4″<\/p>\n

\"Strip<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ora Banda 1992<\/em> (below L) and Window Onto Bougainville Street 1992<\/em> (below R) \u00a0are early examples, and you can find full views of these two in my \u00a0Colour Memories<\/a> <\/span>gallery on this website. \u00a0With straight cuts into the background fabric, strips cut exactly\u00a0<\/b>parallel, and carefully followed seam allowances,\u00a0the result is predictable, and was pleasing at the time.<\/p>\n

\"Bougainville<\/a><\/p>\n

I eventually worked out how to avoid the dreaded bias cuts AND achieve a fair bit of curve using straight cuts from selvedge to selvedge,\u00a0and it doesn’t even matter if the lines are a little uneven !! \u00a0 \u00a0Why? Because, as long as there’s enough seam allowance, \u00a0the main secret is that for the second seam I turn the work over and sew that line from the other side, that is, with the strip lying on the sewing table, beneath the background fabric. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In 1991 I discovered that even straight strips will curve\u00a0very\u00a0nicely with proper handling, a learning process that began while making \u00a0‘Lilydale’<\/em>. \u00a0I was in hurry to meet a self imposed deadline, and had trouble with some cuts that came out unexpectedly a bit off, but some of those fabrics were fat 1\/4’s of which there wasn’t any more to piece in – so with necessity being the mother of invention, I learned how to manage slightly curved inserts!\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lilydale\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually I \u00a0incorporated more pronounced curves with strips, with a good example being\u00a0Bushfire 4 (2004)<\/em>\u00a0 but there are \u00a0many more in the Colour Memories gallery. The strips in each are all cut selvedge to selvedge, really, there are no bias strips; and my piecing is as good and flat as anyone’s, anywhere. \u00a0These strips were cut about 3\/4″ and appear on the front as something less than 1\/2″.<\/p>\n

\"Bushfire<\/a><\/p>\n

To make straight strips combine with curves, though, needs a workshop with hands on demo, and plenty of practice – \u00a0is is a little more complicated, but it’s not hard<\/span><\/em>. \u00a0 \u00a0 It took me a while to work out how far I could push the degree of curviness, but ask me to teach in your area and I’ll come and show you what I learned!<\/p>\n

………………………………….<\/p>\n

2003 marked a new phase of inserts – with an organic look, often very skinny, too; but its still the same that once you get to sew – the sew-the-second-seam-from- the-back-thing\u00a0still applies.\u00a0This is ‘Lightstream’<\/p>\n

\"Lightstream<\/a><\/p>\n

and it led to the group of quilts I now label the Ebb & Flow<\/a><\/span> quilts – gallery on \u00a0this website with plenty of examples.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathy Loomis’ blog today referred a reader to her\u00a02010 tutorial on piecing very narrow lines\u00a0into a background fabric, which for some time have been a feature of her work. \u00a0She’s not the only one who pieces narrow at times – Lisa Call\u00a0,\u00a0Margery Goodall\u00a0and\u00a0Alicia Merrett\u00a0 are among other well known quilt artists who produce great effects […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[184,186],"class_list":["post-2959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-strip-patterns","tag-wandering-strip-piecing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-LJ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2959"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2970,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions\/2970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}