Thursday, July 24, 2014

Many Trips Around the World (MTAW) - part 1

When I first started quilting, I made a large Trip Around the World quilt for my parents. Now, as part of my challenge to deal with fabric, projects and stuff in my studio, I have decided to use up my 2 1/2" strips and make a Many Trips Around the World quilt.  I first found this project on Quiltville last year.  

I made a single block with 2" wide strips and thought....too much trouble.  Pieces too small and would take too long.  Fast forward to today.

I have been cutting my print fabrics into 2 1/2" strips.  I have a basket full.  
To make this quilt block I'm using the 2 1/2" cut strips.  They need to be approximately 16" long.  

I am choosing fabrics that have either a value (light and dark) contrast or a print (solid and print) contrast.  I sew strips into pairs of two.
It was head down and sew, sew sew as I chain sewed the 16" lengths together.

Once the strip pairs were sewn I stacked them up and starting sewing pairs into sets of 6 (3 sets of pairs).  I tried to match either a dark with a light or a print with a solid.
I like the 2nd set better.....will use the dark blue and floral print pair elsewhere.
 I sewed pairs....
 Then added a 3rd pair.

That's a lot of block sets.



Fold the strip set in half with 3 strips on each side and sew the set into a tube.
I haven't pressed anything yet, partly because I am lazy and partly because every time I press, I press the wrong direction.  Cross cut the strip tubes into 2 1/2" sections.  The section on the far left gets thrown out.
Now comes the hardest part.....one seam on each tube needs to be frogged (stitches picked out).  I make a mistake every time, so this is how I have solved this problem.  I move the units so that the seams I will frog (unpick) are at the top (furthest away from me) to the set. 
I take a few minutes and use my seam ripper, not my rotary cutter, to unpick the stitches. And Voila!  my block is ready to sew.
Because I don't press the seams, I can easily flip the seams in the needed direction so I can nest the seams.

Once I have sewn a set together, I don't want to stop and cut the thread, so I chain piece. I grab another 16" strip set and sew them. 

At the end, clip the block pair from the end of the strip, bring it to the front and add another block set. 


Ta Da!  Block is done......I think I have 19 blocks ready to cut and sew.  Not bad for a couple of hours work this morning.  I only have 91 to make in total!
Watch for Part 2 - the Quilt Top and Part 3 - Quilting for the complete story on this quilt. 

1 comment:

  1. Allison,
    Terrific tutorial. I will definitely try this block!

    ReplyDelete