Posts Written On March 2010

This is the second block in the group of four — affectionately known as the Ann Champion Series. Even though this block has many more pieces than Cog Wheels, it’s actually much easier to piece and most of it can be done on the machine.

Here is the drafted block which I re-sized to 14″. In retrospect, I don’t know why I drafted this pattern larger than the bed of my scanner. It’s annoying to have to put several scans together and, since it was going to be re-sized anyway, it wasn’t necessary to make it so large.

This is how I decided to piece the different sections of this block, but you could make smaller sections if you wanted. Start with the interior triangles and work outward.

I began hand piecing the inner circle of triangles, but switched to machine piecing after that.  I made a few changes in the block:

the center circle was changed from light to dark (a mistake, I think, since you can’t even tell it’s a circle now).  Also, I appliqued the center circle which is way easier than piecing.

The completed large circle was turned a bit before adding the background piece which changed the position of the center star (this is just a personal preference — somehow it just looked better to me)

I cut the outside white from a single piece of fabric instead of four separate pieces.  This seems wasteful, but I use the cut-out circle to cut other pieces, and it gives a much cleaner look.  I’m going to go back and change the Cog Wheel background to a solid piece as well.

Some quilters like to make their templates the finished size so they can mark the sewing line on their quilt pieces. I don’t do this — after adding a scant 1/4″ around each template, I draw the cutting line on the fabric and then just eyeball the seam allowance when stitching the pieces together.  Because the blocks Ann selected are complex, I thought they might be nice in just two colors.  Of course, I still want them to be scrappy, so I decided to use vintage indigo fabrics from my stash.  Also, because the suggested sizes were varied on the four blocks and one has way more pieces than the others, I decided to make them all 14″.  It’s probably not necessary to point out that this is a fairly challenging block, and would not be my choice for a first attempt at hand piecing.

When planning how you’re going to put a block together, you want to avoid any sharp curves or inside corners. On this block, I will sew together two basic units (AB and DEFF) and then combine them to make the three colored units you see below. This way I am always sewing a gentle curve when attaching these units to the center C piece. The sewing order will be blue (AB), pink (AB-DEFF) and then green (DEFF-AB-DEFF).

Sew AB (blue unit – make 6)

Sew DEFF (make 6)

Join AB to DEFF (pink unit – make 2)

In hand piecing, you never sew through more than 2 layers.  You get right up against the seam, make a back stitch, pass the needle through the seam, make another back stitch right next to the seam, and then continue sewing.  This is a nice perk to hand piecing — since the seams are never sewn down, they can be pressed in any direction and you don’t have to make a decision about this until the block is completed.

Sew 2 DEFFs to AB (green unit – make 2)

Now, it’s time to put the circle together.  Sew the six units above to the middle C piece, starting with the two blues, then the pinks, and finally the greens.

Finally, join the four corner pieces and stitch them to the circle.

There are several problems with this block that make me unhappy.  First, I meant to attach the 4 corner pieces so the grain in the middle C piece was vertical.  Second, although the points match pretty well, the center circle is not perfectly round (in my opinion, this is the worst problem).  Third, the design is not perfectly aligned vertically.  I hope to do better on the next block.