Monday, March 30, 2015

30's Reproduction Fabrics Jacob's Ladder Block Quilt

For a dear friend retiring I made this quilt using 30's reproduction fabrics with the traditional Jacob's Ladder block. I absolutely love how this turned out and plan to made another one for my mother. The blocks are 6 inch finished and the one I make for my mother will be 9 inch blocks. The quilting is mostly in the ditch with some stitching crossing diagonally across some of the 4 patches.




Saturday, March 14, 2015

Easy Angle Ruler

The Easy Angle Ruler is my new very best way of making half squares. This is the ruler Bonnie Hunter uses for all of her triangles and I took her word for it and finally bought it and used it for the first time. I don't think I will ever make another half square without it.

Here is the scrappy block I am making using 30's fabrics.



To make the half squares you cut strips of the 2 fabrics you want the size of the unfinished block. In my case it was 3 1/2 inch strips.


Place strips right sides together. Pressing with a hot iron helps "seal" the fabrics together for easier, more accurate cutting. These 2 strips definitely needed pressing.


Make a straightening edge on the left side of strip set. Then place the ruler with bottom edge along the bottom side of strip set and the top of the ruler should measure the size of the strip. Mine was 3  1/2.


Make your cut then flip the ruler over placing the black tip of the ruler off the bottom edge of strip set and cut.



Ready to sew. How easy is that???? I was amazed at how accurate my squares were after pressing. No trimming needed unless my sewing was off. If you don't like the little dog ears then you will want to trip those off. I left mine on.



Here are some of my blocks done. They finish at 6 inches. So loving making this scrappy quilt.