So, yesterday we made the foundations for our string cabin quilt. We made fabric squares and glued them face up onto each 9-inch paper foundation. Are you ready to sew?
The next step is to find a strip of fabric and line it up, face down, with the edge of the center square:
Using a short stitch length, sew the new piece to the first, with a 1/4-inch seam allowance.
Then press the new piece flat next to the first. Some quilters like to just finger press to save time, but I set up my ironing board next to my sewing table, and it really isn't much trouble to press as you go. (Plus, I'm using wrinkly strips from my scrap box that need ironing before I can sew them on. It all works together.) Trim off any extra length, and then turn the whole square 90 degrees, so the ends of both fabrics are on your right:
Sew a new strip, face down, to the edge of these two. Then trim and press open.
Turn again so your last added strip is across the top, and do it again:
Continue in this way until you reach the edges of the paper square. That really is all there is to it. About halfway through my first block, I had the idea to pull the blocks together with a white background. So as I reached the edges of the paper square, the last strip on each side is white. It looks something like this:
When you finally have fabric touching (or overlapping) every side of the paper foundation, you are finished piecing that block. Press the entire block once more, and then turn it over and stitch around the edge of the entire block, about 1/4 inch, or a little less.
This will keep your fabrics from coming unstitched when you trim the entire block. Now, using a mat, rotary cutter, and clear plastic ruler, trim the block to exactly the size you need for the quilt. In this case it was 9 inches.
Once you get a few sewn up, lay them out to see how they are starting to work:
Oh, yeah. No pre-planning, and still a gorgeous result. I think I'm hooked.
