single girl quilt along {part 1}

Are you ready?

Shall we make a start?

What you'll need;

your fabrics - pressed (& starched, if you're that way inclined)

your prepared templates

a pencil/quilt marker

sharp fabric scissors

::Ring Fabrics::

Cut your fabrics into 3 1/2 inch strips and lay them right sides up. It is helpful to lay them in ring order so you know which fabric should be used for which template. You can also stack up 3 or 4 layers of fabric together to speed through the cutting process.

Take your relevant template piece and lay RIGHT SIDES UP ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE FABRIC trace round the template, turn it 180 degrees and trace it again. Continue for every template and all your fabrics. (Refer to the pattern for the number of pieces per template - I cut 9 pieces per template because I am making 9 blocks)

Cut out all your pieces using scissors whilst watching TV and drinking wine (optional). You can use a rotary cutter and ruler, but the bottoms of the templates curve ever so slightly, so it's easier to use scissors.

Keeping all your pieces together is key to a successful single girl quilt. I used envelopes, and popped the template and fabrics into each envelope marked with it's letter. You could use baggies, or plastic boxes. Anything that keeps each set of fabrics separate and tidy.

::Background Fabrics::

I pre-washed my background fabric because it was so dark. Because of this it shrunk a little and I couldn't follow the instructions from the pattern in the same way.

Denyse's pattern suggests to fold the fabric selvedge-to-selvedge and mark the pieces close together. I had to wiggle my templates round a bit and have a play with what fitted best - I'd suggest you do the same, just in case you get carried away and cut out all your pieces...but then realise you're a couple of bits short and have no more background fabric left.

When marking your fabric instead of using a regular straight pencil line, use a broken line. This puts less pressure on the fabric and doesn't distort it as much.

On the straight edges of the templates you can add on an extra 1/4 or 1/2 inch to make trimming and squaring up easier later on. I tried a block with both the extra and without and didn't find a preference. It's up to you.

TIP :: when you cut out your background pieces, use a ruler and rotary cutter for all the straight lines and scissors for the curves. It makes for straighter blocks and saves you a heap of time.

And you're set and ready to go!

(I haven't cut out my border pieces yet - if you want to do this whilst you're cutting everything else follow the instructions on page 6 of the Single Girl pattern.)

Don't forget to upload any pics of your process to the Single Girl Support Group and just holler if you need any help - we now have just over 200 members, so that's a lot of support!

Ready? Let's get cutting!!!!

Megan wil be hosting the next step - piecing the rings, on February 21st. The rest of the schedule is below....

21st February - Megan's blog - piecing rings
28th February - Nova's blog - sewing the curves
7th March - my blog - assembly
14th March - Nova's blog - marking the quilting design and hand quilting
21st March - everyone's blog - wrap it up!