Category Archives: Pattern

October 5, 2012 · 11:56 am

Positive Space QAL – Court House Steps Blocks

The pattern shows detailed instructions on how to make these Court House Step blocks, but I’m going to show all you QAL-ers another way with strip-piecing!

Place a 2″ x Width Of (Background) Fabric strip on your sewing machine right-side up. Place one of your 5″ squares right-side down on the strip and sew them together. Once you’ve sewn the square down, simply keep sewing down the strip and place another square down. You should be able to fit 8 of your squares on each 2″ strip. Keep going until you’ve sewn down all of your 5″ squares.

Then you simply do the opposite side of the square using the same method. Always remember to keep your fabrics right-sides together! This can be especially tricky with solid fabrics. Make a choice for which side is the right side and stick to it!

Once you’ve sewn two sides of each square, slice them apart with your rotary cutter, keeping the ends flush with the square.

Press your squares.**

Then use the same method to sew the other two sides of the square unit!

Slice and press and you’ve got your Court House Steps!

Slicey Slice

**I like to press the short sides towards the square and the long sides away from the square.

Isn’t this great? It’s a very fast process using this strip piecing method. Chain-piecing and strip-piecing are your friends!

All the best!

Positive Space QAL – Cutting fabrics

And we’re off! If you’re ready, let’s get to cutting our fabrics. The pattern gives cutting instructions based primarily on conserving yardage. Following the instructions in the pattern will result in all of the cut pieces you’ll need for making the quilt.

If you’re willing to buy a bit extra of your background fabric, I’ll use this QAL to explain another option. You can choose to trim your fabrics later and do more of a strip piecing technique for making the Court House Steps blocks similar to THIS TUTORIAL.

If you’d rather do this strip piecing technique for the Court House Blocks, you’ll need to get this amount of your background fabric (rather than the amount listed in the pattern):

THROW: 2 and 1/2 yards
TWIN: 4 yards
FULL: 5 and 1/4 yards
QUEEN: 5 and 3/4 yards
KING: 6 and 3/4 yards

To prepare for the strip piecing method – INSTEAD of cutting your B and C pieces as explained in the pattern, cut out the following 2″ x WIDTH OF FABRIC Strips:

THROW: 20 2″ strips
TWIN: 32 2″ strips
FULL: 42 2″ strips
QUEEN: 48 2″ strips
KING: 66 2″ strips

For the QUEEN SIZED PATTERN – I noticed one whoopy thing. For the “I” pieces, cut one unit 8” x 3” with the 8” side on the fold. Directly above that, cut another 8” x 6” piece, resulting in three 8” x 6” pieces total.

Okay so there ya go – happy cutting! I’d love to see photos of fabric stacks, and any other progress you make. I hope you find this Quilt Along helpful for sorting through any questions, or as a nice, welcoming place to berate me for any confusion resulting from the pattern.

All the best!

“Positive Space” Quilt – and Pattern!

I am so excited to announce my First Ever Quilt Pattern!

For those of you who have been following my blog or flickr account, you may know this quilt better as “Dusty Springfield” from the Kona Solids Challenge – or “Patti Page” from the Tangerine Tango challenge. However, I don’t think I can legally attach these lovely singers to my humble quilt pattern, so we’re going to go ahead and call it “Positive Space” from now on. Why so much focus on the negative spaces in modern quilts? Let’s focus on these little plus signs and keep positive : )

If you are interested in buying this pattern, it can be found in my etsy shop as a PDF download ($8) or as a printed pattern ($9). The pattern includes cutting charts, color images, and information for making a Throw through King sized quilt-top.

You can also purchase this very quilt from my shop.

Quilted using straight lines, framing the squares.

Many, many thanks goes to the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild – and especially Brenda of Pink Castle Fabrics – for being SO encouraging about going ahead and making this pattern to sell. What an extraordinarily lucky woman I am to have this amazing group of talented, quilty friends.