Q101: How to Sew Your Squares

The first step is assembling what you want your quilt to look like. For my particular quilt I wanted a random pattern. One that included a lot of the pink and gold floral fabric. I also didn't want one type of fabric super close to another fabric. I made sure that each fabric made it into each row or close to that. I wanted a variety of light and dark flowing from the squares. It's super fun to be able to arrange them exactly how you want. It's like a painting that begins to take shape as your put the color on the canvas.

Here is what I finally decided on. For my particular taste it is perfect. Now I know everyones taste is different and some might not like these choices, again just picture how you would do things. That was the beauty in the design is that it can be made for your taste. Your quilt will look completely different than any other quilt if you want it to, or it can follow a pattern and logical sequence.

The next step is to begin to sew one square at a time for the first row. You take the first square ( I started on the bottom left of the picture above) and then sew a straight seam to the next square. Face the fabrics towards each other and sew. Then take the next square you want in line and sew it to the second. Once you complete your first row it should look something like this....

You can see baby girl in the picture and my loyal companion under the table. This is the first row sewed together. Once you complete your first row put it back on the table where you had the rows. Next you start with row two and do the exact same thing. Sewing one square at a time all along the row. I know that this isn't the way a lot of people do it, but this is the way I wanted to do it for the first time. Below you can see that I have about half of the rows completely sewn together and still have about half to finish.

This will go pretty quickly. It is easy and fun. I liked doing this part a lot. This is where you will begin to notice if you haven't cut your squares exactly the same size. I noticed that I didn't do a great job of cutting but it was my first attempt and I really enjoyed it. Here is what it looks like when all the rows are sewn.

I did this in one nap time and evening. I know with a toddler if I had open random squares lying around that it would end in disaster. I needed to finish the rows all in one day. But you can work as quickly or slowly as you would like on this part! That is the joy of making the quilt yourself. Next you need to iron the seams. The easiest way to do this is start at one end of your quilt. Iron all the seams for one row the same way. Either away from or towards your first square. Then alternate with the next row of squares. So if I ironed all the seams towards the first square for the first row, then the next row I would iron all the seams away from the first square. Do this alternating for the whole quilt. This will hopefully make sure that your seams can line up when you are ready to sew in the next step.

The next step is to sew one row to another. You take the first row and sew it to the second row. I pinned all along to row and line it up with your presser foot on your machine and sew a straight line all the way down for the first two rows.

You will begin to see your quilt take shape at this point. I had 14 rows so I needed to sew 13 times to complete the whole front face of the quilt. I really enjoyed this part because you begin to see the quilt as a whole and not individual pieces. Once you have all your rows sewn together then the front of your quilt is finished!

I absolutely love how mine turned out. I am usually not one for randomness, but this was absolutely my favorite sewing project that includes randomness. I look forward to seeing you on my next blog Q101: Layering and Sewing Your Layers. Please leave questions if you have any!