Tuesday Tips – Do you have a “shaggy dog”?

When I first learned how to rotary cut and machine piece ( back in 1994), I was fortunate to have a very thorough and well-organised teacher.  She taught me all the necessary basics as well as many little extra tips. One of the things I remember her teaching us was to use a “shaggy dog” to avoid a “bird’s nest”.

You’re probably wondering what on earth she was on about, as I did too.

Picture this…. you’re all set to begin piecing, everything is pinned/placed in position, you start to sew and the sewing machine doesn’t start smoothly. It coughs and grunts and creates a tangle of threads on the underside of your fabric. (The “bird’s nest”) GRRR!!!

Experienced sewers will know that this problem can be eliminated by holding onto both the top thread and the bobbin thread for the first couple of stitches. However you can also take a small scrap of fabric (never a problem for patchworkers!), fold it over so that you have two thicknesses of fabric and position it under the needle, running it from front to back. The movement of running it in this direction ensures that both threads are out of the way and not likely to be caught in the initial stitches taken by the machine.

It should be positioned so that when you start sewing the first few stitches will be on this scrap.

Start sewing on your shaggy dog.

You can then place your real sewing close to the edge of the scrap and continue sewing onto it.  This will result in a smooth start and undistorted sewing of your pieces.

Going from the shaggy dog to the piecing.

Use this scrap starter each time you commence a new seam or a  length of chain piecing. Snip between each segment after you have reached the end of the seam or chain.

Cutting the shaggy dog from the other pieces.

 

Can you see the shaggy dog in this piece of chain piecing?

Before very long your scrap starter will begin to look decidedly “shaggy”, hence the “shaggy dog”.  When it becomes too untidy, retire that “dog” and start a new one.

 

Ready for retirement.

Some sewers like to have another shaggy dog which they use at the end of their piecing.   It then is in place for the next piecing sequence.

Bonnie K Hunter uses this method which she call “leaders and enders”.  She even uses this technique to generate extra quilts!! You can read about her work and books at: http://quiltville.com/leadersenders.shtml

Do you have shaggy dogs at your place?

 

Jelly Rolling Along

Recently, I decided to use some of the “historical” items in my stash…..those which had originally been bought with great purpose and then left to languish, in favour of other more demanding (of my attention) projects.

Among such fabrics was a Moda Jelly Roll given to me in 2007, and the matching border fabric I purchased to put with it. It is from the Three Sisters “Sanctuary” range.

Border fabric and some of the jelly roll strips.

I had a pattern in mind, from Heather Mulder Peterson’s book “On a Roll”.

Pattern book.

 

In fact the pattern I wanted to use for my jelly roll quilt is the one featured on the cover.

The pattern uses the Easy Angle Tool by Sharon Hultgren to cut triangles from the jelly roll strips, but I don’t own this gadget, so made a plastic template to use as a cutting guide instead.

My easy angle template.

As you can see from the photo, I marked the cutting lines in pencil and then cut with an acrylic ruler and rotary cutter.  (It is NOT safe to try to cut along the edge of the plastic template with your rotary cutter!!)

My stack of triangles grows.

 

Cutting the components.

Once I had all components cut, I was ready to chain piece.

Chain piecing in progress.

The centre part of the quilt is made up of 18 ten inch blocks. In the next photo these blocks are set out on the floor, as I trialled various  placement arrangements.

Trying out various placement arrangements.

And this is what they look like now that they are sewn together.

Joined blocks awaiting their borders.

All (?!!) I have to do now is add the 2 borders, a narrow inner one and a wider outer one, and my quilt top will be ready for quilting.  Hopefully this will happen soon and I will be able to blog about the completed quilt!!