ozcountryquiltingmum

Free Piecing tutorial

I am trying to get a title section so changed my blog layout, says I should get one, still nothing! Anyone help with that?

Okay, if you don't want to know, look away now! But some people do. Boy, hard tutorial because you are never quite sure whether it will turn out or if you are on the right track-as you will see in the pics! You really just need to sit down and play, remebering to have pieces right side together, making sure you cover all edges ot you have raw seams poking out of your picture and that you press flat after every flip. Here we go.

Search around in one of the scrap bags you got for your birthday, then decide you have found too many good bits so put them away for quilts and bags and go and look in your trusty scrap box instead!! -(or something like that)

Pull out a heap of reds, cut into strips, length and width don't matter but err on the generous side, it is easier to cut down later than add on. Can have a fair bit of variation here, it's your flower. I added in the black as the shader. Perhaps have a good look at some roses/rose pics, to get the idea of how the light and dark works.

I started with a black triangle, added a strip of red and sewed.

Then you press that flat, don't trim too much excess at this stage, you never know what you will need to do with it.

add next colour, I went for black

Press flat again

Got to here and not happy, my black had ended up in the corner rather than the centre so a bit of quick unpicking

down the centre

and added in another piece of black-far happier now.

Then make sure you don't completely encircle with your shader as you want to have continuity of colour, like real shading, so the red gets going again.

Here is a tip to remember, for rounding your petals, helps to sometimes do some flip and sew ahead of where your working, like the red piece I have added in above, much easier to get definition that way.

Not going to bore you silly with every step, so here a few progress shots, just using different shades, and blacks where they appeal to me.-thread photos thrown in as a bonus!

Then I have come to the end of the rose, ready to add a background. I place a few pieces of the background around the rose to flip and sew, will help to get rounder edges.

Then just attach the background using the same method as the rose part. You can keep doing this until you get to a block size like 9 inches that you want to evenly trim it to.

Okay, if the first people to visit notice any glaring omissions please post a comment, I am off to watch my families Cats football team thump my team, oh, what unbridled joy! Tracey