The magic of christmas blocks 8 & 9

How about another block or two?

I know some of you have had some questions…please read previous post but here is the skinny…

Starch- a must…saturate completely wet…let air dry…iron and cut. I use faultless heavy starch in the can…its very reasonable…I do not use my Best Press..I’d go broke buying starch then.

Steam…you bet..I always press my blocks with lots of steam…

Washing…I do not…I starch on a white towel…if my red is going to run, I’ll see it when I starch

What size is this going to be? I know this bother some of you that I do not know this…but…its 25- 6″ blocks it will not be a king size…it is going to be a wall or couch throw..a decoration probably not a snuggle quilt.

How do I get perfect points, this is a big question, but a good one..

I try hard…every step is important…first STARCH, see above..then CUTTING is very important…see Creative Grid Itty bitty rulers by PG. Every line is dashed..you can always see your fabric…its not hiding under a solid inch line on the ruler. Test your SEAM ALLOWANCE and make sure it is spot on…I do not use a 1/4″ foot…fabrics differ, thread matters…test to make sure your project is coming out to the right size when starting…I stitch up again a tape bumper that gets moved occasional depending on if I’m stitching flannel, or whatever..I also test regularly….PINNING…yes a must…so do I pin every seam? no…but most the necessary ones…when you use starch the fabrics are stiffer and butt/match up a lot better…so I guess I really pin a lot less than I used to before I starched so heavily….STEAM..I press my blocks into submission, I open bulky seams..not every seam, but usually long seams when piecing the last seams together…JUKI…I stitch on a sewing machine where the feed dogs are nice and close together…so my tiny pieces are being nicely fed through the machine..see my JUKI post…search for it in the search button on the right….then FINALLY…they are not all perfect…I don’t really care if one seam is slightly off a smidge or if my point got dulled a little in the seam allowance…most of the time the layering and quilting will make that magically disappear…it takes a lot of enjoyment out of what we are doing if they all have to be exactly perfect…I wouldn’t get much done if I ripped our everything that was not exact. I believe what make a good quilter into a great quilter is the art of compensation!!! so…other than stitching everyday or as much as you can…this my advice!