Buzz Saw

Um diesen Text auf deutsch zu lesen, klicke bitte auf das DE oben auf der Seite.

A friend wants to have a quilt for her sofa. She loves the batic-fabrics and chose the buzz-saw-pattern.

I thought that pattern would be easy - make 4 identical blocks, sew them together and be done with it.

Oh no.

Each block should be square. I had found a lot of tutorials at Pinterest and they all said: Make a square of half-square-triangles. Easy. Then cut that square in 4 identical stripes. add a 5th stripe turn them all and sew them together.

But - the finished block with 5 stripes is not square!

Let's take a square with 10 x 10 inch. The 4 stripes are 2,5inch wide. Add the 5th stripe with 2,5 inch.

All stripes are 10 inches long.

The block has 4 seams for the 5 stripes, so 4 x 0,5 = 2 inches are the seamallowance. The result will be 10 inch + 2,5 inch = 12,5 inch    minus 2 inch seamallowance = 10,5 inch wide.

But the block is only 10 inches high. The result will be a rectangle, not a square.

I searched again in the internet - and I found one tutorial that said 'you have to trim the stripes at both ends to make a square out of the rectangle.

What's that?  then the width of the 5 stripes is different!!

I understood: I have to start the cutting-process with a rectangle, not with a square. The rectangle should be 10,5 inch high and 10 inch wide.

Then I cut 4 stripes with 2,5 inch wide and 10,5 inch long, the 5th stripe also with 2,5 inch x 10,5 inch.

Then I sewed the 5 stripes together, the result is a square of 10,5 x 10,5 inch!

Ok - that problem was solved. But how to make rectangles with 2 diagonal triangles?

I made the first block like a square - I laid two rectangles on top of each other, drew a line with a pen and sewed on both sides of the line, then cut apart und opened.

Surprise: the result was not 2 rectangles, but 2 trapezoids.

Oh. I realized I had to stack the two rectangles alternated to each other.

Only after I had understood the rectangle-thing, made all the little blocks and took fotos for this page, I found a tutorial with fotos at Pinterest...

Here are the final blocks.

For myself for the statistics: I cut the the rectangles 11 x 11,5 inch, trimmed the triangle-rectangles down to 10 x 10,5 inch. The 5th stripe measures 2,5 x 10,5 inch.

The finished block is 10 x 10 inch.

This is the finished block (one of fifty):

These are the finished blocks, always made by 4 small blocks:

This quilt will be that huge, I had to piece the batting as well.

And another technique I found in the interet: Baste the back with tape to the floor. Then baste the batting and the top with 505-spray.

I will never make a quilt in another way from now on!!! I managed to quilt this huge huge quilt without any creases. And it is much easier to handle that huge quilt (it finished 105 x 63 inch) without pins.

And of course - at the end 15 cm of the bobbin-thread were missing to finish the quilt. I had to use a new bobbin for this small area.

And that is the result!!!

Thanks to the class at Regina Grewe the swirls turned out beautiful.

 

 

If you want to get an email when I publish a new quilt, please click here.

 

Comments (1)

  • Karin
    Karin
    at 20.12.2019
    Ein echter Traum. Bin total stolz auf dich und kann es kaum erwarten, den Quilt abzuholen !!!!

Write new comment