Monday, November 1, 2010

Four-Patch Fun

Earlier in the year I looked at how you can use the 13-Square foundation to make nine patch units (see here for the blog entry or visit the Projects 2010 page on my website for a pdf file including the Quilt Layout Diagram).  You can also use it to make four-patch units.

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I began with creating a Quilt Layout Diagram.  I could have crowded more four-patch units onto the foundation which, granted, would be more economical, but this spacing is easier to work with.  In this case, ease trumped pennies. 

13 Sq 4 patch 1 

Using this layout gave me 18 units per foundation.

As always, I begin by folding the foundation and then drawing the seam allowance lines.

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Because I confuse easy, I drew blue arrows to mark which vertical  lines on the foundation I would actually sew.   (I didn’t bother to mark the Quilt Layout Diagram onto the foundation for this one.  I just laid my patches out in a row and pulled them as I needed them.)

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Here it is with the first patch set glued on to the foundation.

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Here it is after the first column of four patch units have been sewn and pressed open and the first patches for the next set of four-patches have been added to the foundation. 

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Here it is with all the patches added.

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Next, sew the rows together (being careful to only sew every other row):

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Trimming them down to individual units.

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Paper removed and ironed.

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And there you go – accurate and fast, fast, fast!

Now, what to do with them?  So many possibilities.

1 comment:

  1. That is incredible...it is always so tedious to match everything perfectly.
    Great idea!
    Micki

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