Making a Crazy Quilt Square-Part 2

And now to pick up where I left off on Friday. (If you did not read Part 1 of this series, you can find it here: Making a Crazy Quilt Square-Part 1). After I finished disassembling the ties, I attempted to press the creases out before cutting the ties. Because I was planning to use the wider part of the ties for this project, I cut the ties in half (at the point where the ties are knotted) to make it easier to work with them. I set aside the other ends of the ties to use in other projects.

Pressing wasn’t entirely successful, but it helped. Next, I cut the all of but one of the ties in half lengthwise to use two strips of fabric in the project instead of one. Note, I could have left the ties wide and had fewer seams, but I wanted narrower strips for this project to give it more variety and interest.

For the center tie, however, I trimmed the edges, leaving the shape as seen below. There were two reasons for this: 1) to eliminate some snags on the tie edges and 2) this was the only tie that I was using once in the center—I didn’t need a piece on each side of the center.

Once I had the center tie pinned, I arranged the other pieces beside it to determine in what order I would sew them. At this point, you want to make sure that you are overlapping the fabrics for seam allowance. Although I considered doing it, I was in a hurry and did not overlap the necessary 1/2”, and as you can see in a later picture, I ended up needing larger pieces of the tie used in the corners, and one of the other pieces did not fully cover the area. Neither of these issues is a problem for me because I am planning to trim the pillow to a smaller size, and I had larger pieces to substitute in the corners. But that may not always be the case!

Once I had the pieces arranged, I made two stacks of fabric in the order in which I wanted to sew them.

I took the first side piece and put it beside the center.

Next, I flipped it over, putting right sides together and pinned it in place.

Before I started sewing, I changed to a new sharp needle, using the size and style pictured below. I did this to prevent my seams from puckering as I sewed.

And second, I changed to my walking foot to keep the fabrics from sliding as I sewed. Both of these measures were effective. I didn’t have much trouble with the slippery fabrics shifting, and my seams didn’t pucker!

After finishing the first seam, I pressed it open.

When I pressed it open, I realized that I hadn’t trimmed one edge of the tie. I took it back to my cutting mat to straighten it. By the way, in case any of you wonder what cutting tools I use, I use an Olfa 24” x 36” cutting mat, an Omnigrid 6” x 24” grid ruler, and a rotary cutter.

Even after pressing the seam, this fabric piece would not lie flat as you can see below so I stitched it flat, using a 1/8” seam allowance before adding the next piece. This was the only time that I had to do that, fortunately.

I pinned, sewed, and pressed the rest of the fabrics on the stack…

…until I finished the first side. Here you can see what happened because I didn’t allow for the seam allowances when I was first arranging my pieces. Because I took 1/4” inch seams on either side, I should have overlapped my pieces 1/2” inch while arranging them to make sure that they would fill the space correctly. But again, this isn’t a big issue because I am planning to cut 1/2” from all sides of the square anyway to make it the size I want.

I repeated the process on the other side, and here is how it appears at this stage.

I had to stop here to go make dinner for my family, but I will continue with the next step later this week…

For more information, continue to Making a Crazy Quilt Square, Part 3.

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