Finally Back to Normal

The past two weeks have been so busy.  Lucky we had a holiday here in Australia yesterday.  It was Anzac Day, and holiday shared with New Zealand, to remember those soldiers that have fought, and died preserving both of our democracies and way of life.  We spent the day as a family, visiting our adult son James who lives about 50 minutes away in a country town called "Warburton".

I'm dying to tell you all about our new product range, AccuQuilter.  This product is a range of portable cutting machines and dies especially for cutting fabric.  We had training this week and I was fortunate to be able to bring one of the cutting machines home with me, along with a few dies that enabled me to get started on some samples for the shop.  Jim has promised that he and Julie will quilt them for me on the Avante 18 using Pro Stitcher (He is so multi skilled!) which will be great, because as you know quilting does take a while!

There isn't much waste at all since you can easily line up your fabric with the blades in the die cutter.

I decided that I wanted to make a quilt using the Parallelogram die, in a zig zag pattern, so last night I set up the Go! Cutter and found some scraps of fabric.   My son Kevin, who is 13 (and is intellectually disabled), was in charge of cutting and did a great job!

This morning I was able to get my columns pieced, and pressed so that I will be able to pin them ready for assembly either later today or sometime over the weekend.

I used the AccuQuilt Parallelogram 3 1/4" W x 3 1/2" H (Product # 5004) to cut the parallelograms.  To make this design you need equal quantities of mirror image parallelograms.  Simply cut the parallelograms using the AccuQuilt (yes this die can fit on the Baby Go!  too).

Place one white Parallelogram on top of one printed parallelogram.  Notice that there will be a small "ear" at the end of the raw edge that will be the seam line. 

This small ear will mean that the edges of the blocks form a straight line when stitched and pressed.

I assembled the parallelogram's in pairs, then sewed the pairs together to form columns.

I pressed all my seams towards the darker fabric (no the white), and this did make the columns more tricky to piece, so take time to pin the columns well so that you get neat points, or press your seams so that one column runs up and one runs down.  This will make getting good points easier.

 

As you see it isn't finished yet, and if I was making it to keep rather than as a sample for the shop, I would have made it much bigger (I needed to make a sample that will hang in the shop).  Hopefully it will be all finished by Monday ready for quilting next week.

All AccuQuilter product will be added to the shop website www.michellessewingbasket.com.au over the coming week or so.