Flex Frame Pouch - 150mm

Happy Sewing

Quillow

Here

Foundation Paper Piecing

This is a great sewing technique for making perfect points and joins every time. A little bit tricky to get your head round at first, this great little project is perfect for making a small item and learning the technique.

This project makes a small coaster, but don’t think that is the only thing you can make with the finished item. How about making it into a needle case?

So dig out your left over pieces of fabric and have a go.

Get the pattern and instructions

Here

Microwave Bowl Cosy

Protect your hands and furniture from hot bowls. Place your bowl of soup etc in the bowl cosy, microwave and you can lift out a hot bowl with the cosy. Quick and easy to make, they are great for last minute presents.
Material Requirements
2 x 25cm (10”) squares of cotton fabric (non-metallic printing)
2 x 25cm (10”) squares of cotton wadding
Cotton Thread

To buy the instructions click here

Method

For this quilt you will need 576 2½” coloured squares, make these as follows, from your precuts:

Using FQ’s: cut these into 2½” strips and then into 2½” squares, this will yield between 616 and 704 2½” squares

Using the 10” squares: cut these into 2½” strips and then into 2½” squares, this will yield 576 2½” squares (so be careful)

Using the Jelly Roll™: put 6 strips to one side for the binding, then cut the remaining 34 strips into 2½” squares, this will yield 578 2½” squares.

Four Square Block

You will need to make 96 of these blocks. So (randomly) take 384 of your 2½” squares (or remove 192 squares and put to one side) and sew them together in pairs.



Press the seams to one side
Sew two pairs together to make a four square block


You should have 96 of these blocks

Half Snowball Block
From the backing fabric you will need to cut 96 4½” squares
Cut the fabric into 4½” strips across the width of the fabric, then cut these into 4½” squares, this should yield 99 squares, so please be careful if you have only 1¼m of fabric.
Using the remaining coloured squares, pin two of these squares to two opposite corners of the background 4½” squares

Turn this over, and draw two lines, one in each corner, going diagonally across the corners of the coloured squares

Sew along these lines

Trim these seams with a ¼” seam allowance, press the seams towards the corner

You should now have 96 Half Snowball blocks.

Arranging the blocks

Each of the main blocks needs 2 Four Square blocks and 2 Half Snowball blocks, arrange them like this:

I have to admit, that this is the only time I will pin my blocks together. The Half Snowball block has to be the same way round every time and I find pinning them stops them from doing a dance and spinning around. Sew them in pairs, then, sew the two strips together to make the block

The finished block should be 8½” square.

Arrange these blocks into 8 rows of 6 blocks as per the picture on the front cover and sew together.

Binding and Backing

Cut off 2 10” strips from the width of fabric for the backing. Sew these together along the short end and trim to 70” long. Cut the remaining piece of backing in half along the fold (length of fabric) and sew the 70” x 10” strip into the middle. This should give you a backing of 70” x 53” approx.
For the binding, cut the binding fabric into 6 strips 2¼” wide from the width of fabric, sew them together in a long strip.
If using a Jelly Roll™ then, join 6 strips together. These are 2½” wide, so will make a thicker binding.

What to do with the remaining squares
Put them in your scrap box for your next scrappy quilt!
for a printable version click

here