finding my curve groove

one, two, three

i've got a few things worked out, a system in place for these quarter curve blocks that make up the "free-wheeling single girl."

this is what the cutting mat looks like while i'm piecing the patchwork arc sections. here's what's going on, top to bottom:

• four sorting piles for fabric strips at top
• fabrics for current arc piecing and scissors to trim, middle ground left
• square ruler and rotary cutter for trimming seam edges, middle ground right and bottom
• arc template with fabric pieces being placed and ruler for determining placement angles, lower left corner

the details for each of these follows.

rotating for variety

at the top of the photo are my strip piles i choose fabrics from. the wheel block is made in quadrants, so i have four piles of fabrics i'm rotating through as i piece so each fabric is used once per wheel and the fabrics are shuffled from block to block.

the pile i'm working with for this arc is right under the four piles, with the scissors next to it/them (i've split it into light and dark fabrics to make selection easier). 

as i work from this pile for the current quadrant, i put each fabric i've used into the new piles for the next blocks. if you look at the fabrics i've laid out on the ring in the bottom left corner, you can see those three fabrics have been placed on top of the fabric piles in order. that's how i sort them to keep variety going in each ring. when i'm done piecing this block, i'll pick up the next pile and start piecing from it, sorting those strips across the piles as i work.

getting the angles right

there are a couple of ways to work out how to angle the patchwork pieces so they look right in the wheel. denyse draws guidelines on her pattern sheet and uses those for reference. some people use a pen or small ruler laid out to figure it out. this is my system.

i put the arc template piece in the corner of my mat with the two ends lined up with the edges of the mat so the arc is sitting in the corner of the square like it will be in the block. then i lay my starter fabric piece in place up there on the upper left of the template. i use my ruler, set in the lower left corner of the square, to figure out where the next fabric piece should be placed so the seams all angle in toward the center of the block.

i found that if i put the ruler to the right side of where the seam will be, i can lay my new piece, right sides together, lined up with the ruler. 

as long as the upper right ruler edge is touching the outer left edge of the first piece of fabric just above the template when i place the new piece, i know i'll have enough of the fabrics in the seam allowance because i will be sewing the seam 1/4" to the left of where the ruler is. you can see here the ruler crosses the under piece of fabric up there at the top right.

i'm keeping the bottom of the ruler in the lower left corner of the mat and angling to the top right of the piece of fabric already in place.

trim before sewing

then i put the new piece on top, right sides together, lined up along the ruler. i remove the ruler and carefully slide the fabrics above the template, where i trim the pieces along the right edge of the top fabric, removing that little wedge of the lower piece. (in the cutting mat photo, you can see i keep a small ruler and the rotary cutter just above the arc to the right for this purpose.) trimming the seam edge like this allows me to sew along that edge cleanly without the lower fabric hanging out so far on the right. also, if something happens in transfer to the machine, i know where to line up the fabrics again. this saved me the step of going back to the mat to trim the seam allowance before pressing the piece open. i wasn't doing the trimming til after sewing before and i find this is much better and more accurate.

especially because it also allows me to do this:

use the correct foot

i've started using the 1/4" compensating foot and it's been a game changer! it's so much easier to keep the fabric edges lines up with the guide on the foot rather than trying to use the 1/4" mark on the plate like i was doing before. i'm almost thinking i didn't need to order that curve master foot that was recommended to me because this feeds the curves in so well. it's also made most of the gathering i was getting disappear, too.

i owe this discovery to the companion nine patches i've been sewing along with the curves and my dislike of changing feet. i was having trouble keeping me seam allowance accurate on the nine patches with the general piecing foot that was on the machine. i think it was still there from the last hsts i pieced, which it's necessary to use for that type of piecing across the middle of fabrics. the tana lawns were being squiggle under that foot. i got fed up with messy blocks and changed to the guide foot to see if it would help. it did! and the gathering stopped, too. win-win. 

when i next went back to piecing the curves, i left it on for the arc pieces and decided to cut them before sewing so they could go under this foot. it helped there, too. 

so i tried sewing the curves with the guide foot and was so happy to have great results there, too. what a win!

now i have three wheels complete and several more sets of nine patches. both quilts are coming along nicely.