Granny Core QAL Week 3: Piecing Plant 1
Welcome back to our Granny Core QAL! This week, we’re diving into more strip piecing to create our first plant motif. Strip piecing is a fantastic technique that speeds up the sewing process and ensures precision. We will use similar techniques as last week's checkerboard. If you’re new to this method, don’t stress– We’ve got plenty of tips to guide you through it smoothly!
What We’re Doing This Week
We’ll be piecing Strip Set A, sub-cutting it into smaller strips, and assembling the plant block with a staggered layout. Follow the pattern instructions carefully, and check out our tips below to keep things neat and accurate.
Helpful Tips for Success
Keeping Your Strip Set Straight
- Sew with a consistent 1/4” seam allowance. Just like last week, keeping an accurate and consistent seam allowance will pay off with matching seams. Using a 1/4” presser foot or seam guide can help.
Press, Don’t Iron
Press your seams to the side (toward the darker fabric) as you go. Sliding an iron back and forth can distort your strips, so do your best to be gentle with your fabric.
- If your strip set starts to bow or curve, check that you aren’t pulling the fabric as you sew. Slightly adjusting your sewing speed to sew a bit slower can help prevent this.
Sub-Cutting with Accuracy
- Once your strip set is fully pressed, square up one raw edge before sub-cutting into 1 1/2” wide strips. If you are apprehensive about trimming too much off you can easily calculate the amount needed for sub cutting. Take the strip amount (6) and multiply it by the cut size (1 ½”) to find the total needed (9”).
- Line up your ruler with the seam lines to keep everything straight while cutting.
- If your strips look slightly off, give them another light press before sewing them into the staggered layout.
Staggering the Strips
- When sewing your groups of three strips, make sure each strip shifts down by one block on one side and mirrors that shift on the other.
- Nest your seams! This helps the pieces fit together snugly and reduces bulk.
- If the seams aren’t aligning perfectly, try pinning at the intersections to hold everything in place before sewing.
Assembling the Plant
- Attach your center stem piece with the background strip at the top.
- When sewing the strip set groups to either side of the center stem, be sure to align the bottom of the first main block with the seam of the stem.
- When attaching the second side of your strip set groups double check that your leaves are aligned on either side. Check out this week's video to see more on this!
If you’re struggling with alignment, don’t be afraid to un-sew a seam and try again—quilting is all about practice!
Truing Up Your Block
- It can be helpful to use 2 rulers when squaring up. Place one ruler horizontal along the edge you will true first. Then, before cutting, use a second ruler to measure vertically to ensure you’ll have enough to work with.
Watch the Video Tutorial
Share Your Progress & Enter This Week’s Giveaway
We can’t wait to see your plant blocks—share your progress with us in our discord or on instagram using #GrannyCoreQAL. Plus your posts will enter you into this week's giveaway! This week's prize is a Baby sized quilt kit and corresponding printed pattern of your choice.
Entries for this week's giveaway close on Tuesday 2/25.
Next week, we’ll be working on Plant 2 with (you’ll never guess…) more strip piecing! Yay!