Ready for a nifty trick for a square within a square? I saw this technique on a video from National Quilter's Circle (I am a premium subscriber so I had access to it). It's too good not to share how to do it. It is from Peg Spradlin. Ready? It took me 2 minutes to make this block with no cutting. I say no cutting because I used a spare layer cake square and a spare charm pack square. Ready? Here we go.
Lay your 5" square in the middle of your 10" square.
Fold over two sides so they meet in the middle. I put a pin in the middle of my 5" square to keep it in place. I would imagine if you're careful you don't need to or you could put a little bit of washable glue to keep it there.
Press the two folded sides so it lays nice. Take it to your sewing machine and sew 1/4" down each side.
Do the usual. Set your seam (if you usually do that) and then press open your block.
Ready for the next part? You repeat for the other two sides. In this case the top and bottom. Notice in the above picture you have two raw edges. Not for much longer!
Fold the top and bottom in together and take it to the sewing machine and stitch.
Take it to the ironing board (or wherever) and set seams and press open.
It took me only a couple of minutes to have my square within a square block. Sweet!
Ok. On the down side is that you have what looks like cornerstone blocks in the corners since you are sewing all the way down. I'm thinking that perhaps you could modify this technique a bit and mark your start and stop points by the 5" squares. It would be a partial seam then but you wouldn't have the cornerstone affect. Not sure if that would work. Having the extra seams that show going all the way up and down the block don't bug me. That's me. If it bugs you, you might not want to do this.
This technique would also work with rectangles, etc. Try it and see if you like it.
Lay your 5" square in the middle of your 10" square.
Fold over two sides so they meet in the middle. I put a pin in the middle of my 5" square to keep it in place. I would imagine if you're careful you don't need to or you could put a little bit of washable glue to keep it there.
Press the two folded sides so it lays nice. Take it to your sewing machine and sew 1/4" down each side.
Do the usual. Set your seam (if you usually do that) and then press open your block.
Ready for the next part? You repeat for the other two sides. In this case the top and bottom. Notice in the above picture you have two raw edges. Not for much longer!
Fold the top and bottom in together and take it to the sewing machine and stitch.
Take it to the ironing board (or wherever) and set seams and press open.
It took me only a couple of minutes to have my square within a square block. Sweet!
Ok. On the down side is that you have what looks like cornerstone blocks in the corners since you are sewing all the way down. I'm thinking that perhaps you could modify this technique a bit and mark your start and stop points by the 5" squares. It would be a partial seam then but you wouldn't have the cornerstone affect. Not sure if that would work. Having the extra seams that show going all the way up and down the block don't bug me. That's me. If it bugs you, you might not want to do this.
This technique would also work with rectangles, etc. Try it and see if you like it.
3 comments:
THat is pretty nifty, Bonni. The pictures to accompany the instructions is also a big help. You wouldn't believe how i can mis-interpret instructions!
I agree with Kat - a pretty nifty trick. And thanks for the heads up abouat that site - off to check it out.
Thanks Angie and Kat. I quickly did some squares with Denim that I had acquired. Those were 8" squares so I just adjusted my center red square down to 4". I just figured if 5" was half of 10" then my center square needs to be half the size of my outer square. I just love easy math like that.
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