Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Daddy's Tie

The fourth and final block for Jackson's quilt is Daddy's Tie - this is such an easy block to put together - one liberated braid surrounded by the feature fabric. The inspiration for this block came from Jacquie over at Tallgrass Prairie Studio - she has a great tutorial on her blog this week for her chevron technique.

Why Daddy's Tie - because it reminds me of a tie. My first go round with the braid included dots, but I thought they made the braid a bit too busy so I decided to stick with solids - they work in the tie!
Sewing a liberated braid is so simple. I started with a heap of strips cut to 1'', 1 1/4'' and 1 1/2''. This photo was taken before I decided to omit the dotted fabric.
This is a liberated braid - no measuring - free styling piecing! Get started with two pieces of fabric and stitch them together. I was cutting my pieces about 4 inches long.
Stitch the next piece of fabric perpendicular to the first seam.
And that is as complicated as it gets! For my tie I selected 6 fabrics - 2 green, 2 orange, and 2 turquoise. I staggered the placement of like fabric so they would not show up on the same side of the braid - look closely at the braid below - the placement of green stripe strip alternates sides.
I had 3 blocks to make (a total of 4 for the quilt - I made my sample block earlier) so I decided to make one long braid - cutting it to size later. Look under my presser foot - see the piece of dottie fabric - - - that's my little pillow. I use it so I can chain stitch my braid. I sew through the pillow first, then keep stitching through the block seam. When I finish the block seam I sew another pillow at the end, then snip off my block, leaving the second pillow under the needle.
Snip off the attached pillow - and repeat. It saves so much thread.
I sewed and sewed until my braid measured about a yard in length. To cut the braid down to size - 2 1/2'' wide - I located the center at or about where the strips meet in the center. Trim one side first, then trim the opposite side - creating a strip measuring 2 1/2'' wide. Then cut into 3 strips 10 1/2'' in length.
Voila!

To finish the Daddy's Tie block cut one strip of focus fabric 2 1/2'' wide x 10 1/2'' long for the left side.Cut another piece of fabric measuring 61/2'' wide x 10 1/2'' long - I fussy cut this piece so that the turquoise giraffe was in the center. Piece the sections together for a 10 1/2'' square block.
Tomorrow - time to put our four blocks together!

3 comments:

Kim said...

Adorable!
Instead of using the thread catcher you could just feed another unit that needs piecing.
Since you are making multiple braids you can just feed in one after the other. Have you ever tried it that way?

Love your choice of colors too.

Happy Sewing

Lisa ONeill said...

Hey Kim - I would normally do just as you suggest, however I made one long braid, not three separate. Thanks!

SandyQuilts said...

Thank you thank you I've been wanting to try the braid but all the measuring and etc. put me off. Darling idea.

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