Checker Cakes Quilt Along: Week 8

Week 8 of my Checker Cakes Quilt Along starts today! I’m a little sad that my first quilt along is wrapping up, but I’m super excited to see your quilt tops. So help me out and post them on instagram and tag me @snugglebugstitching. For this week, we are going to sew those tops together. So, I do actually have some new information for you today! You can always check out my previous tips for the blocks at the follwing pages:
Cutting
Chain Piecing
Pressing

Chain piecing your quilt top

You can acutally chain piece your whole quilt top just like you chain pieced your nine patch blocks. This works exactly like when you pieced your blocks except you’ll have the seams in the blocks to match up. If you pressed your seams to the dark sides with your cross section seams pressed in the direction that has more high volumes, all of your seams should be able to nest nicely. Check out the pressing tips from week 2 if you need a refresh on what all that means. I have a little reel on my instagram with some tips on laying out your quilt top and keeping your blocks in order for chain piecing.

Pressing

As usual, I’m going to say to use whatever pressing method works best for you. But, I will show you a few ways to nest your seams. I find this super helpful in getting my seams to match up. If you aren’t familar with nesting seams, here’s a post about it.

The photo above shows the back of my Option 2 quilt top. In this one I pressed the seams in each row in opposite directions. So, in this picture the seams between the blocks in the top and bottom row are pressed to the left. The middle row is pressed to the right. This allows the seams to nest nicely. Can you spot the block in this picture that is pressed differently than the others? I pressed a few blocks differently to have the pictures for the pressing tips section from Week 2 and left them that way when I sewing the blocks together.

Check out the picture of the back of my Option 5 top. I pressed the seams towards the blocks that have five high volumes. This also makes it so that all seams will nest. I like this method better than the other method. I find with the other method I’m always having to check the seam because I forget which direction that row is supposed to be pressed. Check out the red and yellow pieces in the blocks above. You can see that I have the cross section seams going in opposite directions. But, since I pressed the pieces the way that I did, the seams of the nine patches still nest nicely.

Longarming Discount!!!

If you prefer to send your quilt off to be longarmed, I have a discount offer for you! Renae from Rainy Day Stitching was nice enough to offer a 20% discount to my quilt alongers! She has a two week turn around time and does beautiful work! Show her some love and give her a follow on instagram at rainy_day_stitching. I have her form pictured below. Her contact information is listed at the bottom of the form if you have any questions for her. Click HERE for a printable version.

For anyone who’s new to sending your quilt off to a longarmer, here are a few instructions from Renae:
-Backing needs to be 4″ bigger than the quilt top on all sides
-Quilt top needs to be pressed
-Trim any threads

Basting your quilt

I have a little run down of basting methods here. BUT, do whatever basting method works best for you.

I flip back and forth between spray basting and using stick glue (purple Elmer’s Washable School Glue stick). I’m currently using stick glue because I got called out by Mr. SnuggleBugStitching for making a huge mess with the over spray. I made a few minis earlier this week; one using pin basting and one using stick glue. The results were identical. You can see those here. I’ve also compared these two methods before in a previous experiment. The point is, it doesn’t matter what I do or what someone else does. Do what works best for YOU! We can use different basting methods (or pressing, or binding, or whatever other kinds of quilting methods) and still be friends.

Quilting your quilt

If you know how to free motion quilt, go for it! However, there are some beginner friendly ways to quilt that you can do with your walking foot. Both of these methods are more forgiving than typical straight line quilting. Since the lines aren’t straight, mistakes are less noticeable.

Use a decorative stitch with ditch quilting – This quilt is perfect for this method. There are plenty of seams so that quilting only decorative stitches over the ditches would give you enough quilting to keep your batting from breaking apart and wadding up. I have a blog post on this here. I also demoed this on my instagram here.
Organic wavy lines – These give great movement and texture to your quilt. The more of them you use, the less noticeable any imperfections are. I have a reel where I demo these here.

My hybrid binding method

There are lots of ways to bind your quilt. Use whichever method works best for you! I use different methods for different quilts, but I’ll go over my binding method here in case anyone is interested.

Why do I call it a hybrid method? It’s sort of a cross between making your binding and using your backing as binding. I did cut the strips, but I attached them a little differently compared to traditional binding. Once the strips are attached, The process is similar to using backing as binding. I do feel like this method makes it easier to get the nicely mitered corners.

This is definietly one of those things that makes a lot more sense if I show you. So, check out a few reels of me attaching the strips and the binding method after attaching them.

Recap

– This is the last week to take advantage of our find it game. The coupon code from the game expires on August 30 at the end of the quilt along.
See if you can find my directional mistake in my original Checke Cakes quilt pictured below. If you find it, contact me. It’s worth a coupn code for 30% off all the patterns in my shop. The coupon is good for the duration of this quilt along.

– My next Quilt Along
The next quilt along will use my Sound Waves Baby Quilt pattern. It will run from October 23 – November 20. The quilt top goes together super quick. We will have it finished in Week 2. This will give me a little more time for some posts on helping you finish your quilt. The coupon code from the find it game would be a great opportunity to get a discount on the pattern for the next quilt along.

Prize for this Week

Our prize for this week is going to be a FREE PDF pattern. Some of you already have some of my patterns, the winner will be allowed to pick whichever pattern they want.

To be eligible for prizes:

– You must be following me @snugglebugstitching on Instagram and post progress pictures for the week on Instagram by Tuesday at 5:00 PM Central Time. You must tag me @snugglebugstitching in your posts and use the #checkercakesqal.

-I will announce the winner on Instagram and tag the lucky quilt alonger so that they know they’ve won. The winner will have one week to contact me to claim the prize. Any unclaimed prizes will be forfeited.

Each Week on the Blog

I’ll link to all of the other weeks near the end of each post. I will add each post here as I have them. You can also find this on the Quilt Alongs Page.

Week 1 – Gathering fabrics and making pairs
Week 2 – Make first 10 blocks; tips for cutting, chain piecing, pressing
Week 3 – Make 10 more blocks; announcement for my next quilt along; extra surprise prize
Week 4 – Make 10 more blocks, a little more on pressing
Week 5 – Make 10 more blocks
Week 6 – Make 8 more blocks; some progress pictures from my quilt alongers
Week 7 – Make 8 blocks: a discount on longarming services from Rainy Day Stitching
Week 8 – You are currently at the Week 8 post