Blog Archives

Quilt Tip: Quilting Supplies from the Hardware Store

8/26/2024

Here are some interesting things to shop for at the Hardware Store. The lesson is to keep your eyes open for products that can be useful. Have you ever bought any of these?
---Ann

1 Comment

Quilt Tip: Piano Keys Border with Easy Miter Corners

8/19/2024

0 Comments

If you love the look of a piano keys border like I do, you will love this easy miter corner technique to go with it. If you are a Virtual Quilters member, you might recognise this heart block. The pattern was our July Block Lotto. I wanted to make a small wall quilt, and use the scraps from making the blocks to add a piano keys border.
--Ann

Click on any photo to see a larger image

Here are the steps I used

To keep the math simple, I cut strips 1-1/2 inches wide, which result in 1 in wide finished. I decided to make the piano keys 3-1/2 inches long to finish at 3 inches. You can obviously choose what you want.

I make long strips the exact length of each side of the small quilt - corner to corner. Then I made 2 square blocks for each corner (total 8) that were 3-1/2 inch x 3-1/2 inches.

I trimmed the corner squares so that they were 3-1/2 inches square, the same width as the long piano key strip on each side.

Make Half Square Triangles for the corners: Pin 2 of the 3-1/2 squares, right side together with the seams in the same direction. Draw a diagonal line.

Stitch from corner to corner on top of the drawn line.

Peek inside to be sure things lined up as you wanted. Trim the excess off 1/4 inch from the seam. (Yes, this is waste or can be sewn as another Half Square Triangle & saved for something else)

The Half Square Triangle you made will be pieced into the corner. Sew the long side strip on first, matching even with the corner of the quilt. The sew the Half Square Triangle unit to the top border strip. PS- I did both sides at the same time.

Sew together ends up with a perfect miter corner, and the piano keys seams hides the method of sewing things together.

Do the same procedure at the two bottom corners to finish.

All done, and read to do the quilting.

0 Comments

Winner drawn for our July Block Lotto

8/18/2024

0 Comments

A new fun activity for our members is the monthly Block Lotto. Each month a new block pattern is shared, which the members can use to make quilt projects including quilts of any size they want. The fun part is that if a member mails a completed block to Ann per the instructions, we have a drawing. The winner takes all.
The winner for July is Pam S. from Sonoma, Calif. Congrats Pam!

by Carole H. (Santa Rosa, Calif)

By Justine L. (Santa Rosa, Calif)

by Marilyn B. (Colgate, Wisconsin)

by Pauline H. (Vancouver, Canada)

by Diane S (Seattle, Washington)

By Justine L. (Santa Rosa, Calif)

by Pam S. (Sonoma, Calif)

by Sue S (Simi, Calif)

By Fanchon C. (Grand Rapids, Michigan)

by Laura B. (Santa Rosa, Calif)

by Patricia B. (Santa Rosa, Calif)

by Tomi S (Santa Rosa, Calif)

0 Comments

How to Miter Borders on a Quilt

8/5/2024

0 Comments

This is a tutorial on how to Miter Borders on a quilt, and it is well done. Helpful to be successful if you want this look. A thank you to Fat Quarter Shop for the video.

0 Comments

Quilt Tip: Quilting Supplies from the Hardware Store

Quilt Tip: Piano Keys Border with Easy Miter Corners

Winner drawn for our July Block Lotto

How to Miter Borders on a Quilt

Virtual Quilters

Categories

Archives