Welcome to the tips and tricks series for the Mosaic Ornaments Quilt! This post series is partly to provide extra insights into this pattern and partly to function as a sew-a-long. If you're following along for the sew-a-long, this is the schedule:
WEEK 1: Fabric selection, cutting fabric, labelling and storing fabric
WEEK 2: Making all our starter blocks - HSTs, flying geese, cat's cradle (or shaded four patch)
Week 3: Making Ornaments 1 and 2
Week 4: Making Ornaments 3 and 4
Week 5: Putting it all together!
This post accompanies WEEK 1 of the sew-a-long. In this POST:
Selecting Fabric
Selecting fabric is one of my favourite parts of making a quilt. Okay, let's be honest - I love MOST aspects of making a quilt! That's because making a quilt is super fun. I personally feel that selecting fabrics for your quilt is super personal. But often it can be intimidating when you're stepping into a fabric store and there are so many options, or you hear words like colour theory and colour wheels thrown about. I like to keep it simple in general and match the style of the pattern itself. I then pick fabrics I like and try to use up what I already have in my fabric stash/scrap fabrics.
With this pattern, I wanted the pattern to be the star of my quilt, so I chose mostly blenders for my fabric pull, i.e., fabrics with un-busy prints. Blenders are great! Even if they are bright or vibrant colours. As they don't have busy prints, they go quite well in most quilt patterns without taking away from the beauty of a quilt. Next, to accent my quilt, I chose two busy, bright fabrics - I even managed to find fabrics with bits of gold in them for a little extra flair! I found some lovely white on white print for the sashing, and to round it off I added two solids. I later changed my mind about the green and replaced it with another green print that also had bits of gold in it, but it all worked out well together. The other solid was my background fabric, a lovely Prima Homespun Apricot. I sometimes avoid solids, even for background fabrics, because I love prints so much, but somehow this one seemed to pull it all together. And there you have it!
Now, even after picking fabrics, it can be difficult to visualize how they all work together in the pattern. Which is why there are colouring pages for each size included with the quilt pattern. You can also create quilt mock-ups, or view mock-ups created by others on the QuiltInk website. So many options to try!
Cutting Fabric
The cutting instructions for this pattern are given at the beginning of the pattern. To make it easier to make the cuts, we start with WOF or Width of Fabric (from selvedge to selvedge) cuts; then cut our fabric bits from each WOF cut. The pattern includes what seems to be the best way to do this, but if you would like to try your hand at cutting your fabric differently or if you're working with leftover fabric from other projects or pre-cut quilting fabric like a FQ, then your fabric cuts may vary.
The double fold is my favourite way to get these WOF cuts out of the way. It's much faster and takes less room. I can also use my standard (favourite) quilting ruler instead of getting out a really long one. BUT it can be tricky to get these to be accurate! Sometime double fold WOF cuts, or even single fold WOF cuts end up with fabric bowing in the middle (where the fold is), which is not fun when trying to sew! This is because when fabric is folded onto a bolt, it isn't always folded perfectly lined up. Also, there can be errors when fabric is cut in stores. To avoid complications with these, it's best to take a few extra precautions when cutting our fabric.
My best advice is, make sure you have the following set up:
The largest cutting mat you have access to, set up on the largest flat surface you have access to (for me that's our kitchen table). It helps if your mat is at least as big as the width of your WOF cuts with a small margin on either side.
A large quilting ruler - I use a 12.5" by 12.5" ruler by SewEasy.
A rotary cutter with a fresh blade (you're going through four layers of fabric! A fresh blade makes all the difference).
An ironing set up close-ish to your cutting station (this isn't super necessary, but it's nice to have to prevent things moving about too much while transferring from one set up to another).
A few paper weights to keep your ruler from moving when you're making your cuts.
Next, we'll do the following
Fold out your fabric and as much as possible press all the seams out. Then refold your fabric to make sure the two selvedges line up. Press the fold.
Fold again, this time make sure your folded edge, and the selvedge edge is lined up (as seen in the image above).
Next place the folded strip of fabric on the mat. You can line up your fabric edges to the marks on the mat, but do not use those to make your cut as we will be using the markings on your ruler.
Line up your ruler to cut your first WOF strip with a little overlap (as in if you're supposed to cut 4.5" strips, cut a 5" strip instead). Don't worry if it isn't perfectly lined up.
Make sure the top and the bottom of your double folded fabric line up to the horizontal lines on your ruler and are parallel to each other - this is a really important step, and this is what will keep the fabric from bowing at the folds.
Cut your first WOF strip. Place weights along the ruler if you feel your ruler will slip. If you need to do more cuts, then set your WOF strip aside and keep going with your cuts. Try not to move your fabric too much and frequently check to make sure everything is still lined up and there are no extra folds in your fabric.
When you're done with all your WOF cuts, come back to the first one and flip it over, so the cut side is now lined up with your ruler. Find the right markings - i.e., if you need to make a 4.5" WOF cut, then line up with the 4.5" line. Trim excess fabric.
It all sounds a bit complicated, but trust me, mastering the double fold cut will change your approach to quilting. It makes getting started so easy! But if you're super nervous and don't want to give it a go just yet, you can start with single fold cuts or cutting layers of fabric. Mastering this can make it much easier to cut out the larger squares needed for those side and corner triangles.
Here's an Instagram reel on cutting WOF strips: Instagram Reel
Once your WOF cuts are done, follow the cutting table to get the rest of your cuts! Try and get your longest/largest cuts out of the way first then move on to the other ones. But avoid cutting the side and corner triangles until you're ready to sew with them to avoid accidental stretching.
Labelling Fabric
Labelling fabric is super important to keep all your fabric bits organized. This pattern has a number of strips and small squares, and these are super easy to lose track of! Labels keep them organized. I chose to not cut many of my WOF strips right away while cutting out my fabric so as to not lose track of smaller squares, but I still pinned labels to each WOF cut so I knew what to cut from each strip when I got to that step.
To make it easier to label fabric cuts, the pattern includes a labels page with most of the labels you will need for this quilt. There are a couple of blank labels as well to use as needed. Make sure to print that page single sided so you can use the labels without missing out on pattern instructions. And because they're single sided, you can always use the reverse side of the labels to label blocks, etc. A win win! I stored my neatly cut and labelled fabric on an old cutting mat, so it all stayed nice and flat, and covered it with an old ruler to keep things from flying away. If you know you will not be sewing for a while I recommend putting it in a container or box so there's no risk of fabric pieces getting lost or crinkled.
And that's it! Next week we'll move on to sewing some of those blocks.
Comments