Made in Cherry Quilt Along - laying out your pieces

I was going to do one mega post tomorrow about laying out the pieces for the star and stitching them up but realized it would be too long.  So this afternoon's post is just laying them out, and tomorrow we'll sew.

Start by laying out the squares for the center of your star.  You'll create a grid of 100 squares, 10 by 10.  I don't have a design wall so I laid mine out on the bed, but if you have a design wall you should really use it as it will make this part so much easier.  Oh, and a dog is not mandatory, but they do make things more interesting.  

Add your star point squares to the center block.  You may have to shuffle things around to get the balance right.  You should also add your triangles at this point.

*Most people will want to lay their fabrics out right side up.  A lot of mine are wrong side up because I will be using them that way to get a softer look *

Divide the star center block into 4 smaller blocks of 5 by 5 squares for easier sewing.  If you are arranging your star on your design wall, you can skip the following steps and just pull pieces off the design wall as you go.  If like me you can't keep your squares where you laid them out, this is the method I use for keeping track of everything:

Condense the block into columns.  I like to sew the columns first, so in each row I stack up from the last column on the bottom of each pile to the first on the top.




Then I condense my rows,  again with the first one on top.  I also add a tag saying which quadrant these squares are for.  I labelled all of mine on the top left square of each block for consistency.

 

Now the points.  Again, don't forget to add a label!

 

I hope this makes sense!  You don't have to do it this way, this just helped me to keep myself a bit more organized with all those pieces.

Ok, tomorrow sewing!

C

Pin It