Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Using Quilter's Grid - A Tutorial

Do you cringe at the thought of sewing together 100 2 " squares? Yeah, me too. But here's an easy peasy way to do it. We're going to use Quilter's Grid . QG is an iron on fusible, with a convenient 1" grid printed right on it!

First thing you want to do is tidy up your piece of QG. You don't want any extra hanging out because it is a fusible and will gunk up your iron.
 For demo purposes, I'm going to show you how to do this on a smaller piece of QG. Mine measures 6x6, and I'm using 2" squares (this block is made of Vintage Sheets). Next step, lay out your squares on the grid, and follow the directions that come with the fusible. (I use a hot iron with no steam, pressing, not ironing. You may want to test on a scrap first. The first time I did it, my iron was screaming hot, and it melted everything!)
 We're ready to start sewing. Fold your QG, with the right sides of your fabric together. Fold directly on the grid line. Remember, we have 2" squares here, so fold on the second grid line over.
 Sew it down. A scant 1/4 inch seam here.
 Now's a good time to check the accuracy of our 1/4". My left edge (where I just sewed) comes in at 1 3/4 - just where I want it!
 Once you have all your rows sewn together (let's call these the vertical rows), it looks like this:
 And this:

Take a sharp pair of scissors or snips, and snip the seam allowance, just down to the stitching line. If you snip the sewn line, no big deal, it will get covered up when we sew the horizontal rows. Remember, again, snip every other row.
 We snip into the seam allowance, so we can press the rows in alternating directions, so the next set of seams will nest nicely. And I'm totally embarassed about the state of my ironing board cover and as soon as I'm finished posting this I'm going to make a new one!
Mmmm. Alternating pressing.
Mmmmm. Nesting seams.
 Okay, sew your horizontal seams now and give them a nice pressing. It should look something like this:
 And when you flip it over, it looks like this!
 If this is your test patch, check your size again. My middle guy is
1 1/2" ~ perfect. (And if yours isnt' perfect, ain't no big thing.)
 So, here's my bigger one, all pressed on my grungy ironing board. Since the entire 20" wouldn't fit, I laid it out and pressed it in stages.
 The big block with the vertical rows sewn.
Just snip and sew your horizontals and.....
Ta da! The finished block. Look at how pretty those points are!
Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope you'll give this a try!

15 comments:

Sonia said...

awesome! I always wondered how to get the 2 inchers lined up perfectly! thanks :)

craftytammie said...

you make it look so easy!! hope i can get mine to come out as pretty as yours! (secretly, you're hoping so too LOL)

Unknown said...

This looks great. I've used this method before, but never with so many squares. It makes perfect points and is pretty impressive!

I finished cutting squares tonight and got everything fused. Hopefully I can start sewing in the next couple of days. I've been having trouble carving out enough time to sew. Really cramping my style!

Anonymous said...

So where was this tutorial LAST year when I was doing this the slow old fashioned way?????????

Very nice tutorial.

blessings, jilly

Skooks said...

I've never even heard of this stuff before! Glad you wrote up the tute though, looks sweet! Will be woorking on this hopefully next week. :)

Sparky said...

Never seen or heard anything like it...way super cool...Ok, somehow I have got to ...well you know...sooner...wink..

Anonymous said...

This looks so easy! I can't wait to try it, brilliant idea of the clipping and nesting of seams!

Kathleen said...

Heather, very cool. I've never seen that technique before. I am guessing that the QG is so thin it doesn't effect the top of the quilt too much? I will have to look for this. Thanks for sharing.

Skooks said...

I just finished mine and I'm amazed at how easy this stuff is to use. Now if only I had listened and started cutting a few squares here and there a few months ago . . . at least I was able to use up a lot of my little scraps that I can't seem to throw away! :)

Rachel said...

WOW! Thank you SO much. My next project will be a larger than King size "Around the World" quilt and this will make it SO much easier..WOW. This made my day! THANKS!!

elnorac said...

Thanks for this wonderful tutorial! Not having even edges on little squares drives me crazy!!!!!

sandandstarfish said...

This is amazing! I had no idea this stuff was even invented! I need to do this. Like need need need!!

Patricia said...

This was exactly the information I needed to complete a quilt for my new daughter-in-law! Thank you so much for posting it.

Unknown said...

This is genius. I wish I'd known about this before I made my little girl's quilt, complete with a million tiny squares!

Carla(OMA) said...

OK- how come there's so many of us who've never heard of this stuff???? Lol. I think it's genius too. I'm gonna try it this weekend. Wish me luck. I'm not really patient with 1 or 2 inch blocks so this will be a lifesaver if it works for me. I'll let ya know.......