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January’s workshop produced excellent and lovely results, the participants moved along quickly, and some of them had four blocks done by the end of the day, quite an accomplishment.  Janice, who plans to make two wedding ring quilts for two weddings in just six weeks went home and got straight to work; she has provided us with her new found tips on how to make this process zip along…

Double Wedding Ring – Life after the workshop
By Janice T.

The Mississauga Quilters Guild organized a great workshop with Johanna Masko who taught techniques for the Double Wedding Ring last Saturday.  I now know how to use spray starch, parchment paper, templates and lots of other new techniques to sew curved arcs with great results every time!  I never would have attempted a pattern with curves and templates without Johanna’s class.

Patti Carrey from Northcott spoke at the Guild meeting last Thursday – she suggested that if we take a class, success will be greater if we continue with the project within three days of the class.  Well, I waited only three minutes and I would say that mantra must work!

Do you know how many of those little pieces you need to cut for a large Double Wedding Ring quilt?  Don’t ask as you may be daunted by the task.  I developed a few more techniques of my own in order to cut the 500+ pieces.  Note – these may not work for you, so read at your own risk: 

• Use water soluble marker when tracing templates – easier than a mechanical pencil and any residual not cut off can easily be sprayed away from final block
• Nest curved template against the previous one so you only have to cut once and not twice.  Inside curve is slightly tighter than previous outside curve, but I tested it on a final block and it made no difference.  Another plus is that you get an extra piece or two out of each strip!
• After marking all the curved templates on one strip, use your ruler and rotary cutter to trim ¼” outside the template cutting lines from both long sides of the strip BEFORE cutting out each template.  This will then allow you to open your scissors wide and cut each arc in only two snips – this will alleviate finger fatigue and blisters – and is better for your scissors.  Only cut the archs – not the straight sides yet.
• Gather the cut pieces and place them loosely together facing the same way.  Hold all pieces in left hand, starting with top and one-at-a-time, snip off all the STRAIGHT edges on one side of the pieces.  Turn them around and snip off the STRAIGHT edges on the other side.  This will only make sense if you have the template and know from experience how tedious the cutting is.  This quintupled my production rate.
• When cutting the corner pieces, draw the template on one (starched) strip.  Line up 2 starched strips behind, pin inside each corner piece template outline – through all three fabrics.  Cut out 3 (starched) strips at the same time.
• When placing the arcs on the background block, the corner blocks were often perfectly positioned without much tweaking of the arcs – much to my surprise, given the above short-cuts.  Then I gave the block one quick press with the iron.  This secured the pieces in place and they laid perfectly flat for sewing.  Use 4 pins for extra security and stack in preparation for machine appliquéing to the background fabric.
• Bottom Line fine thread was in my needle, with Aurifil in the bobbin and both worked well together.
• The zig-zag went very well and the walking foot almost didn’t need my guidance to stay on track.

I have to thank Martina and Cheryl who provided extra cutting and ironing support in class.  This gave me the kick-start to go from four blocks finished in class to 53 blocks by the next evening.  Anything is possible – you only need a kick-start!

Editor’s note: Johanna’s blog can be found at:

http://seamslikely.blogspot.com/

Here are a few photos of our day. Janice’s double wedding ring has certainly come a long way since Saturday – and this is Sunday evening’s picture!