Friday, January 13, 2012

Made in Cherry Quilt Along - let's get cutting!



Today's the big day!  Are your fabric stacks ready?  New blade in the cutter?  The perfect playlist on your ipod?  Alright then, let's cut!!!



These instructions are for the 80" quilt.  I'll post at the end with the dimensions for the alternate sizes.

If you're working from yardage:



From each of the fabrics for the star cut:
3 strips 4½" by the width of the fabric.  Cross cut these into 4 ½" squares.
1 strip 4 7/8" by the width of the fabric.  Cross cut these into 4 7/8" squares.  Select 20 of these squares and cut on the diagonal to yield 40 triangles.




A few tips:
Because we'll be working with bias edges with our triangles, it's a great idea to pull out your spray starch and give your fabric a nice going over with it.  My recipe is here if you want to give it a try.

I often find that I goof up when cutting the same size square over and over.  So I've put some painters tape on my ruler near the 4½" mark.  This is really helping me hit the same guide everytime.  And since I used painters tape it won't leave any residue.  If you have a stash of it, washi tape is great for this, too.

If you're working from scraps:

For the star squares you'll need to cut 180 4½" squares.
For the star triangles you'll need to cut 20 4 7/8" squares, then cut them on the diagonal to yield 40 triangles.



I'm using mostly scraps, so on my ruler I've used tape to mark off my 4½" square.  It makes it so easy to tell if a scrap is big enough.

Ok, that's it for this week.  Cut cut cut!  Next Friday we'll start sewing our star together!  And we'll be cutting our background fabric a bit later.  This way it doesn't have a chance to fray as we work on the star, and it gives everyone (ok, me) a little time to finalize their fabric choice.

the stack I'm working from, I'm going for a monotone kind of thing








60" x 60"

From each of the fabrics for the star cut:
2 strips 3½" by the width of the fabric.  Cross cut these into 3½" squares.
1 strip 3 7/8" by the width of the fabric.  From these strips cut 20 3 7/8" squares.  Cut the squares on the diagonal to yield 40 triangles.  Trim the remaining strips to 3½" width.  Cut these into 3½" squares.

If you're working from scraps:

For the star squares you'll need to cut 180 3½" squares.
For the star triangles you'll need to cut 20 3 7/8" squares, then cut them on the diagonal to yield 40 triangles.

90" x 90"
Cut in the same way as the 80" quilt, but for the squares cut 5" strips and the triangles 5 3/8" strips.


I can't to see how everyone's doing, so don't forget about the flickr group, and if you blog about the quilt along, link up here too!

happy cutting, 
c
 

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18 comments:

  1. Oooh fun, I can't wait to get to cutting my fabric! :)

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  2. All cut and ready to start sewing... Thanks for directing us!

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  3. i am so excited to start!, yay. I'll get cutting tonight.

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  4. This looks like fun! Wish I had all my ducks in a row so I could join you, but that's one of my goals for this year. I want to finish some WIPs so I can be free to join QALs!

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  5. Oh fantastic - I hope to get my charms chopped this week - I have one whopper quilt to quilt this week, but I will need something else to alternate with - yippee!

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  6. My pieces are cut! Can't wait to start sewing!

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  7. Looking forward to starting the cutting this weekend!

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  8. I've got more than enough squares cut and ready to go. I need to do the triangles. I am going with Christmas scrappy. Hoping to have it done by next Christmas.

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  9. Cutting at retreat tomorrow!!! I may even venture ahead and piece my big square if all goes well.

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  10. cut and ready to sew ... still trying to decide on background color - maybe will wait until large square is pieced and then decide

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  11. I won some of Sarah's St Ives fabric on her blog and decided I would make the
    Made in Cherry quilt but with 1" squares. I now have a photo of it on my blog if you would like to see it.

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    1. I also have decided to make a mini with 1" finished small squares. Glad I'm not alone in this madness!

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  12. ok, im assuming ill also need 180 5 inch squares if im going 90x90...
    sorry to ask, im mathmatically challenged!!

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  13. Ooooh, I may have to join in on this. I have my most favorite line EVER still waiting to be used. Maybe it's time. ;)

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  14. For a 90" x90" version you could use charm packs. I'dliketodo thatbut what abou the size of the triangles?
    Or do I see a problem where there is none?

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    1. You can definitely use charm squares, but as you pointed out the triangles need to be cut from slightly larger squares. I've got 2 solutions, though. The first is obvious - buy some yardage to match and cut from those. The 2nd is a little trickier. Rather than 20 squares cut in half you'll need a full charm square for each triangle. Instead of cutting them in half you'll need to cut them with the 1/4" line of your ruler on the diagonal of the square, so you'll end up with one big triangle plus one small one from each charm. The small ones are for the scrap bin, the big ones are for the quilt. I hope this makes sense!

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  15. I was seized by an uncontrollable urge to chop up some blues fabrics this morning, so it looks like I'm in, making the 80 x 80 from stash fabrics. I have a couple of deeper blue solids to choose from for the background...or maybe I should go for a contrast? Don't know yet, but thanks for organizing this QAL and giving me yet another project to do :)

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  16. Hi Chelsea! :)
    I'm just now getting around to pulling fabrics for this, but it's a pretty stack!

    I'm wondering, for the star points: can we just make 4 patchwork squares and then cut them diagonally to get our 8 star points? Is that ok? And would I have to do any special quilt math to make it work? Thanks! :)

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