Quilt Along #5 - Let's make vines!

 

Good morning! Are you ready to make some vines? I bet you are. The pot was pretty easy, huh? For some reason I have always been really intimidated by making bias strips and making anything WITH the bias once I have it. In theory I knew HOW to make them, but I was just too afraid of messing up my fabric, so I never made the first step. Well, wouldn't you know it? Gwen Marson has a totally EASY way to do it. Well, when I made the vines with her up in Michigan they went together perfectly, but as I was making them here in my sewing room by myself, they weren't cooperating, but in the end they look great, so don't worry one little bit. Yours are going to be awesome too!

Go get your pot and the big piece of background you set aside. You are going to need it after you make your bias strips.

 Have you selected what fabric you want to use for your vines? I thought I was going to stick to my stack of fabric I chose way back when we started this quilt along, but I didn't want to use my pretty flea market fancy fabric as the vines. I selected another green from my shelf. Go ahead and choose a new fabric if you need to. I will wait....OK.

If you already know how to make bias strips, go and skip ahead. That is fine. 

You need to make slices along a 45 degree angle. The easy way to determine the 45 degree angle is to fold over a corner and cut it off and then start making slices from there (that is what I did...and while it did work in the end, sewing the edges together was kinda a headache because they were not exactly 45 degrees).

So I recommend you use the 45 degree mark on your cutting mat and use it as your guide for your first cut.

 After you have made your first cut (basically cut off a big corner of your piece of fabric) fold your fabric in half along the bias edge. This will make it easier when you get going.

 Cut your bias strips 1.25 inches. I cut 7 of them and I have some left over. If you don't want that many vines, don't cut as many strips.

 At this point, because I was not precise in my making of the bias angle, I had to make true 45 degree angles.

 see?

 Now then, you sew them all together to make a long single piece of bias. Just place the face to face and sew them together. They aren't perfect, but that does not really matter (to me) because we are going to fold them over on themselves. 

 You are going to sew the folded bias together with a really long basting stitch. Make your stitch length as long as you can. You will remove this ugly stitch after you sew your vines down, don't worry.

 See? Just fold it as you sew it. No need to press it. It will be about a half inch wide.

 Look at all that bias stripping!

Now for the fun part! You will need a hot steamy iron for this.

 Lay out the end of your strip of basted bias down on the top part of your pot block. Leave some hanging down at the bottom. With your Hot steamy iron you can press the bias into all sorts of positions. You can make really dramatic angles or quite subtle ones. It is up to you. You can also make the as long as short as you want. Just cut them off at the length you want them to be.

 You will need to pin your vine down with heat resistant pins (Clover makes my favorite glass top pins and You will love them if you feel like treating yourself). Gwen taught me this little trick....Take your 6 x24 inch ruler and slide it under your vine and use it to pin against so you don't pin your block to the Ironing board. Move the ruler out before ironing the next vine.

 Press and pin all you vines where you want them to be. I want a couple vines hanging below the top part of the block, so I pressed them in a downward angle and left several inches un-pinned. I will press these and pin them after I sew the background to the pot part of the quilt block. Does that make sense?

 Now, carefully stitch all your vines down. 

After your vines are stitched down, sew the pot part of the block to the top part. Look at all those pretty stems. Next we will make leaves and flowers, and little buds.

I am going to make a flickr group for our little quilt along. I guess I should have done it when I first began, but late is better than never.  Here is a link. Please join and show off your Liberated quilt! We can also have discussions there if you need help.

Cheers!

Tia