The Back of the House - A How To

A lot of you seem to be as taken with my little 6" Crown of Thorns blocks as I am. Not hard when they are that small and that cute! I've had a question about how to get accurate joins, so I thought I'd share a few pics with my method, if you are interested in trying it out.

Start with accurately trimmed HSTs - all diagonal seams to the dark side - four light squares and four green squares, and lay out your block.

Sew the blocks in rows using a scant 1/4" seam allowance.

Starting with the light centre block of the centre row, press both seams out to the dark side, alternating the press directions as you go. The next two outer seams will be pressed inward. Some people use spray starch to help things stay in place but I just use a little steam in my iron.

Sew the remaining rows together, alternating the direction of pressed seams so that the seams nest nicely into each other. It's a good idea to sew all the rows before you sew the rows together so that you can confirm that all the seams are going in the right direction before the block is assembled.

It's also a good idea to pay attention to what you are doing so that you don't end up with something like this and having to spend some quality time with your ripper... :D

Nesting the seams makes a huge difference in your ability to get accurate piecing, especially with such tiny pieces. And believe it or not, me, who usually pins everything, doesn't pin a thing, even with pieces this small!

I press the two top seams towards the top of the block (away from the centre square) and the two bottom seams to the bottom of the block (again, away from the centre). If I were going to sew the blocks to each other I would have to think about whether there is a better way to do this so that you can nest those seams as well, but I'm thinking that they will be assembled next to a plain piece of fabric, so no nesting will be necessary. This is what it looks like from the back.

Give it one last press...

and then send it to join the others.

I thought these blocks would take forever to assemble but the biggest time commitment is trimming the blocks; it's key if you want consistently good joins.

Hope that helps; let me know if you have any questions and I'd love to see any blocks that you might try.

And speaking of tiny, Anne and I put together a few blueberry pies the other day and the last one was this little cutie. It was headed for the freezer....M