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Useful Piecing Techniques – Points and Seams

Ever have difficulty with cut off points, matching up points or matching up seams? Well, you are in luck because that is what this week’s post covers. In last week’s blog post, one of my beginner’s tips was pinning units for stitching to make sure your piecing is accurate. This tip really comes in handy when matching up seams and points too. I’m going to dive a little deeper into matching up seams and points because it helps to make your quilt design look the way you want. So let’s go!

Crisp Points

First up, let’s look at those points. We’ve all had this happen. You stitch the units of a block together and press the seams only to flip it over and see this:

One of your points is cut off by the seam. It’s frustrating when it happens. If you only have a few cut-off points in a large quilt, they may not be noticeable to anyone but you. But if it’s a smaller quilt, like a wall hanging or table runner, it can be very noticeable. So, here’s some steps to practice to get crisp and not cut off points. 

First: If you are joining a unit with a point to another piece, my first tip is to keep the unit with the point on top when you pin them together. This way you can see the point as you are stitching the units.

Second: If your unit with the points was pieced correctly, there should be 1/4″ from the point to the edge of your unit (see below). Measure to make sure. Measuring completed units as you go will save you headaches later!

Third: Keep your eye on the point as you are stitching. I am using a pin as a pointer in the photos below to identify where the point is as I stitch. You want the seam that you are stitching to pass right above the point.

The photos below show how the seam looks on the back and how your point looks on the front once you press the unit open:

Matching Points

These tips are for when you want to piece together 2 units where there are points on each that need to match up.

First: When pinning the units together, you want to start by lining up the points of each unit and pinning there. Here is how I line up the points. I lay the units right sides together and then pull the top unit down to get the point lined up with the point of the unit below. I slowly inch the top piece back, eyeing the points the whole time to make sure they stay lined up. Then start by pinning in the center before pinning the rest.

Second: Follow the stitching instructions above to stitch the seam, keeping it above the point. Since you took such care in aligning the points, the seam should be above the point on the back unit to. Hopefully you can see in the photos of each side (below) where the stitching line passes above the point:

My thread is a little dark, but because the other fabric in the unit is a tan print you can tell the seam doesn’t go into the point. Now press the unit open and you have points that are matched.

Aligning seams

The steps to aligning seams are similar to aligning points, except when you are piecing a quilt, you may have a lot of seams to line up accurately to keep your design flowing. For example, when joining these two Jacob’s Ladder blocks (below), I have squares and the diagonal lines of the half-square triangle blocks to match up.

I start by matching the center seam of the two blocks using the same method I used above in matching points:

I then pin starting in the center to make sure nothing shifts and then I pin the rest. Stitch the seam and press open. The two blocks joined look like this:

Notice how the corners of the squares and the diagonal seams of the HST units of each of the blocks match up, all because you carefully lined up the center seam. Perform this seam alignment steps for as many seams as there are in the blocks you are joining. A challenging design could have seams and points to align at the same time, so it’s a good idea to practice this skill.

The main point is to line up seams and points carefully first and pin where you want NO shifting whatsoever. If you do these steps, you should be successful in achieving units and blocks with no cut off points or unaligned seams. 

That’s it for now! Join me next week for some more piecing techniques. Leave me a comment or ask questions and be entered into a drawing for my pattern Star Wheels. This pattern has a lot of points and seams to align to give you lots of practice!

The drawing will be on Monday, March 14th so you will have this week and next week to enter! ***We have a winner. Congrats, Pat!***

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Mini Video Tutorial Quilting Tips

Sometimes, just demonstrating quilting tips with drawings or diagrams isn’t enough. Seeing the quilting tip demonstrated in a video helps clarify questions that often arise. Because of this, I have created some mini tutorial videos on some quilting tips I have previously covered in written posts. Hopefully, seeing me in action will help demonstrate the tip better! Since it’s the beginning of a new year, I thought a review of some of these tips might inspire you to quilt some more. So lets get started! Share some quilting tips you’d like me to demonstrate in a future mini tutorial in the comments and be entered in a drawing for one of my patterns!

Video Tip #1 – Ironing vs Pressing

Some people think when they are quilting they should be ironing the seams. That is actually a “no-no”. Pressing is the way to go. Open the seam with your fingers, a wood pressing tool or the tip of your iron (without touching the seam itself) them place the iron on top to literally press the seam in place. Here’s a link to that video:

I like to press my seams open. As I said in the video, this works for seams pressed to one side also. The key is to not distort your seam by running an iron back and forth across it.

Video Tip #2 – Flip & Sew Corners

It’s important to follow these tips because this type of unit can end up distorted in size if you are not careful. I like to fold back my piece I just stitched on and measure the unit to make sure it still measures the correct size before trimming off the excess fabric in the seam allowance. Here’s that video:

Video Tip #3 – Aligning Seams and Matching Points

A key to creating a striking design with your quilt pattern is aligning seams, matching points and not cutting off points. Like other techniques, with more practice you will get better and better at doing this. It will become second nature. Here’s the mini video I did on this:

I highly recommend using pins when joining pieces for a block or joining blocks. Pins help to keep the units from shifting after you have worked so hard to line everything up.

Video Tip #4 – Squaring Up Fabric

You hear this all the time… you need to square up a piece of fabric before you cut your pieces. If you are new to quilting, you’re probably saying to yourself … “what is squaring up fabric?”. It’s actually easy to do and something you should do. Here’s my mini video on squaring up:

I recommend doing this anytime you are getting ready to cut from a new piece of fabric, even if it’s a fat quarter or fat eighth. I also recommend you check and re-square a large piece of fabric after cutting several strips. The fabric can shift if you are cutting a lot of strips and lead to distorted strips even if you started with squared fabric.

So, that’s it for now. In the comments, share with me some quilting techniques that you would like to see demonstrated and I will make a mini video tutorial in the future. If you leave a comment, you will be entered in a drawing for my new pattern Wildflower Lane!

The drawing for this pattern will be on Monday, January 18th. Until next time, **We have a winner! Congrats, Laurel DeWolf!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Piecing Techniques – Accuracy Tips Part I

My advice to quilters just beginning is to practice, practice, practice. You may not achieve crisp points, accurate flip & sew units or aligned seams when you are just starting out, but that does not mean you won’t get there. I tend to be a perfectionist and I don’t recommend it! LOL! Often I see imperfections that someone else would never be able to see, especially a non-quilter. It’s good to strive for the best, but don’t get upset if everything is not perfect. I’m going to share some tips to help you improve. You’ll find the more you piece quilts, the more accurate your piecing will become.

This week, I will cover crisp points and aligning points when piecing blocks or units together and aligning seams. So, let’s get started!

Crisp Points – Only One Unit with a Point

We have all done this. You’re piecing a quilt with a lot of stars or flying geese units. When you’re all done, your points are cut off!

Notice the point on the left is cut off compared to the point on the right. That’s what we’re trying to avoid. So, here’s some tips.

First, If you are joining a unit with a point to another piece, my first tip is to keep the unit with the point on top when you pin them together.

Next, pay attention to the point as you are stitching. That’s why we want that piece to be on top. If your unit with the points was piece correctly, there should be 1/4″ from the point to the edge of your unit. I am using a pin as a pointer in the photos below to identify where the point is as I stitch. You want your seam that you are stitching to pass right above the point on the back.

This is what it should look like when you are done:

Now when you flip it over and check… crisp point!

Like I said earlier, the key to getting these crisp points is to make sure you piece your units that have points, flying geese in this example, have the correct seam allowance. 1/4″ from point tip to edge of the unit:

Crisp Points – Matching Units both with Points

As in the tip above, the first key is to have your units with point measure correctly with the points 1/4″ from the edge of your unit. For this example, I will pretend I have a pattern where two flying geese units are joined on the point sides. Here’s my geese units:

When pinning the together, you want to start by lining up the points of each unit and pinning there. Here is how I line up the points. I lay them right sides together and then pull the top unit down to get the point lined up with the point of the unit below. I slowly inch the top piece back, eyeing the point the whole time.

Then I pin the center first before pinning the rest.

Now, follow the stitching instructions in the first section of this blog post to stitch the seam keeping it above the point. Since you took such care in aligning the points, the stitching should be above the point on the back unit to. Hopefully you can see in the photos of each side below where the stitching line passes above the point:

And after pressing, here is how the unit looks with the points matched!

So, that’s crisp points and matching points. Now onto aligning seams.

Aligning seams

The steps to aligning seams are similar to aligning points above, except when you are piecing a quilt, you may have a lot of seams to line up accurately to keep your design flowing. For example, when joining two Jacob’s Ladder blocks, I have squares and the diagonal lines of the half-square triangle blocks to match up.

Like the geese units above where I was matching points, I start by matching the corners of the squares:

Then I pin the center first and move out to pin the rest of the unit. Stitch and press and my Jacob’s Ladder block should look like below:

That’s the end of this week’s lesson. Come back next week for creating units and blocks using flip & sew corners and having them measure accurately! Leave a comment below and enter my drawing for pattern, Twinkle, Twinkle which will give you a lot of practice on crisp and matching points! 

The drawing will be on Monday, November 30th so you will have two weeks to enter! **We have a winner! Congrats, Mildred Plaskett!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne