Drumroll, please... Only 170 weeks or so behind schedule for the 2021 Deco Quilt Along hosted by pattern designer Lo & Behold Stitchery, I have finally caught up to Week 7 by finishing all of my blocks and moving on to assembling my quilt top!
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| Finally Finished Making All of My Deco Quilt Blocks! |
Once again, if I had any idea how long this project was going to take, I probably would never have started it in the first place. š¬. Ignorance is bliss!
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| Rebecca Does Not Follow Directions, As Usual |
Including some "action shots" here of quilt top assembly in progress. My poor B 990 machine must be so bummed; all her fancy high tech features but the only thing she gets to do so far in my studio is Piecing Straight Stitch #1313! So, if any of you have made this quilt before you might be noticing that I've veered from the pattern instructions in a couple of key ways:
- I disregarded the instruction to press all of the seams open in this quilt and created my own pressing plan instead. It is nearly impossible to get crisp and accurate seam intersections if you press all of your seams open -- and conversely, it is practically goof-proof to get perfect seam matches when the seam allowances have been pressed in opposite directions and you can just snug them together for a little seam hug, secure with a couple o pins and then sew
- The pattern instructs you to create additional full log cabin blocks and then slice them in half from corner to corner to create the side blocks. I didn't want to do that for two reasons. First, it would cause weird and unnecessary seams to land right on the outside of my quilt where they would interfere with binding in the last stages of the project. (Note that, if you're making one of the smaller size versions of Deco rather than the bed size quilt I'm making, you have to slice different blocks in half diagonally, losing your points all along the outside of your quilt!). Second reason for disobeying instructions was that I wanted to have control over the grain line along the outer edges of the quilt as much as possible, so I cut those blue triangles for my partial side blocks with the grainline on the hypotenuse (long side of the triangle).
- I used my AccuQuilt GO! Setting Triangles 8" Finished die (this post contains a few affiliate links) to cut my side and corner setting triangles to the exact size for my 8" finished blocks. AccuQuilt makes their setting triangle dies in various sizes and it's definitely worth getting the coordinating size setting triangle die if you already own one of the AccuQuilt Qube sets and/or you frequently make blocks of a certain size. Not only does this die "do the math" for you to cut the appropriately sized setting triangles -- with the points pretrimmed for easy alignment before stitching -- but the layout of the triangle shapes on the die itself ensures that all of these setting triangles will have straight, non-stretchy fabric grain on the edges that will form the very outer edges of your quilt top. So, because I cut these setting triangles with my AccuQuilt die, I did not have to think about making sure I had straight fabric grain on the hypotenuse side of my side setting triangles but straight fabric grain on the short sides (NOT the hypotenuse) for the four smaller corner setting triangles. The setting triangle die makes it a lot easier for novices to tackle diagonal set quilts successfully. By the way, if you don't think you'll make enough diagonal set quilts in a particular block size to justify the cost of AccuQuilt or you're not already invested in that cutting system, there are specialty rulers available that will help you cut the correct size setting triangles for any block size. I have the one Kaye England designed for Good Measure, but I've seen other brand versions in quilt shops and I'm sure they work just as well. Kaye has a video showing how to use hers here.
