Any quilters out there? A question.

[KimDW]

I've started a quilting project (never did patchwork quilts before only embroidered tops). I have a question. If I have a block that is 7 1/4" x 7 1/" and I cut it diagonally once from one corner to another and then diagonally again from the other corners to have 4 equal size triangles, what will my two short side triangle lengths be? I know the long side will be 7 1/4". I tried dividing it in half but it comes up as 3.625" and I don't know what that will be on my ruler. The reason I'm asking is because my pieces are wanting to match up exactly when I put them together and the instructions say I should end up with a block that is 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" - and I don't.

Thanks,
Kim

 

[truton]

Hi Kim, 3.625 is 3 5/8 inches. If your block isn't coming up to the right size, check to see what your size you made your seam. For quilting it's generally 1/4 inch, but check your directions just to make sure.

I know a lot of sewing machines don't have the quarter inch mark on the plate. If you don't have that mark, put a piece of tape 1/4 to the right of your needle and use that as a guide. Sewing a consistent seam is real important when you create blocks or they won't line up when you put them all together.

Actually if your blocks aren't coming up exactly to 6.5 inches, as long as all your blocks are consistently the same size you should be okay when you piece everything together. Before I got the sewing machine I have now, I was always just a tad bigger than 1/4 no matter how hard I tried!

Best of luck with your project. Quilting (and collecting all that fabulous fabric) is so addicting!

 

[KimDW]

Thanks TK. Actually last night I figured out what I was doing wrong. I was just putting some pieces together to see how they would look (hadn't actually sewed any together yet) and was measuring the block size from that. I had forgot that my 1/4" seam would take up the difference and so I will end up with a 6 1/2" block. I've ordered a 1/4" seam foot for my sewing machine so I can be as accurate as possible and I've got to go get a little more material because I remeasured my triangles last night and some of them were really off so I need to re-cut them. Time just flys when I work on this project.

Kim