A Tutorial

I love reading craft tutorials on blogs.  There is so much talent out there in Blogland, and I really enjoy seeing how these fun things are done.  I'm always learning something new!

Lately I've had the urge to post a tutorial of my own.  What to share with you all was a big question.  It should be colorful, I think, and somewhat entertaining.  Not too long, but detailed enough to get the idea across.

The MOST important thing, though, is that the topic should be something the writer is good at.  Hmmmm.  Well, let's try this one:

HOW TO MAKE A CRAPPY QUILT

Oops!  Isn't that supposed to say "Scrappy Quilt"??  Well . . .  .

Here are my steps.  See what you think the title should be:

1. Pick up a pile of miscellaneous pieces from a garage sale. Age and source unknown. Fiber content? Unknown – does it matter? 
2. Pick a new block pattern that you have never tried before. We should always try new things, right?
3. Even though the pieces are hand cut, don’t bother to verify size or square up corners. It will be close enough.
4. Cut your background pieces using a rotary cutter and be very precise!
5. Don’t bother to plan your layout now. Just start making blocks. You can figure out what the finished product will look like later.
6. Decide on two contrasting backgrounds, but only after you’ve made more than half of the blocks using the first color. You can always add more blocks and make a larger quilt. Don’t worry about having duplicate colors in the same background. It’s a scrappy quilt!
7. When seams or points don’t match up, go ahead and stretch the shorter piece. You can press out the wobbles later.
8. If you forget to trim off all the little "ears" at the seam edges, don't sweat it.  They won't show on the front side anyway.
9. When adding new fabric, use the dimensions you figured when making backgrounds. The cardboard template isn’t accurate anyway.
10. After all the blocks are finished, decide whether you want  them to be all the same size OR have nice perfect points. It’s too late to have both!
11. Use a photo of the blocks and a cut and paste method to  plan the final placement. Laying them out on the floor is too much trouble and you should be able to see the duplicates from photos.
12. It’s too late to worry about what direction to press the seams, so just flip the ones that are too bulky. So what if there are a couple twisted seams on the back? (or a couple dozen!?)
13. Decide to put multiple borders on the (crooked) quilt. Maybe the borders will distract from the wonky sides.  Don't get carried away with measuring each border either.  Eyeballing it is good enough.
14. Quilt that sucker to within an inch of its life! You can blame it all on beginner’s quilting skills!

 

 

Much to my surprise, the end result doesn't look too bad . . . from a distance!  Definitely not something to enter into a show, but very usable.