Peppermint Swirl part 3

Finishing up the 240 Half Square Triangles.

I chain piece my piecing, that is I sew one set of triangles one right after the other without breaking the thread.

 This is all well and good until I realize that I had been piecing after running out of bobbin thread. UGH! I had to resew a few minutes of work. It is just one of the hazards of chain piecing.

After I sew the pieces together I need to take them over to my ironing table to press, not iron, toward the dark side. What's the difference between ironing and pressing? Pressing is more an up and down motion than a pushing motion. When you iron instead of press you can distort and stretch the fabric out of whack. Whack..that's a technical term.

I thought you might be interested to see my iron. Its a little different in that it has little feet on the bottom that it sits on. When I touch the handle the feet drop down and its like a normal iron.

I never have to lift the iron up. No wrist pain. This may not seem like such a big deal but when you are ironing lots and lots of pieces the less you have to lift the iron the better.

The other thing I use when pressing my fabric pieces is a starch alternative. I spray it on the fabric before I even cut out my pieces to help prevent in stretching in bias edges.

Peppermint Swirls Part 2

Lets begin piecing Peppermint Swirl. First we start with set up. I have my sewing area cleaned off...for the most part. The quilts in the upper right of the picture are all charity quilts that need binding. Its getting to be a really big pile and I need to get those on my to do list. I have my sewing table set up in front of one of my windows in my studio. I enjoy sewing by natural light and this room has that! It has 4 windows on three walls so the room is just flooded in light for the whole day.

Next I have my beverage, in the morning its coffee sitting on a hot plate to keep it warm and my ipad ready to watch some shows. It is nice to have something to listen to while I work. Sometimes I listen to books from Audible. I like to use Audible with books that are super long. I am an avid reader so this kills two birds with one stone.

Let the piecing begin! When I am piecing lots of the same things I will chain piece them together. That is just sewing one right after the next without breaking the thread. This is fast and you can just keeping going and going when you get in the zone. I tend to sew a bunch together say 50 and then cut them part and prepare them for ironing. I do this so that I am not just sitting for extended periods of time but am able to get up and move around.

Because the pieces are small triangles I snip the ends off so that when I press them open (to the dark side) I don't have little dog ears hanging out.

I will sew all 240 half square triangles together and then piece them to form the main block. I sewed up a sample so you get an idea of what the blocks will look like when pieced.

  So cute!

Peppermint Swirls Quilt

I thought today I would walk you through how I make a quilt start to finish. Below is a picture of the quilt I will be making. As you can see its called Peppermint Swirl by Fig Tree Quilts. Let me step aside and say normally I would not work on a Christmas Quilt in November or December as I would never have it done for the holiday. Just being honest here. I tend to get sidetracked.

 I begin some quilts with the pattern first and some with the fabric. This quilt started with the idea that I need some Christmas Quilts in my house. Shocking but I don't have one red and green quilt. Someday I would love to have a Christmas Quilt on all my beds and for my kids to have one for their place as well. Just for the record I have a King, a Queen, and two Twin beds in the house and just think it would be the bees knees to have Christmas Quilts on each one! I will have to share with you my wish list of quilts sometime.

I digress. This quilt began with a color scheme and then I found the pattern. Once I had the pattern I was able to then pull fabrics from my stash or purchase the fabric I needed.  Each of my projects go into a tub such as the one below.  This is my way of knowing that the fabric for this project can't be used for another project. I am also able to keep all the pieces as I sew them in a safe place and handy. My quilts tend to have a lot of pieces and as you can see in the picture I have stacks of triangles cut and ready to sew together. There are over 500 triangles in case you were wondering.

I will post more pictures tomorrow as I get to sewing on this quilt.