Nine Carat Quilt Along: Week 2

It’s Week 2 of our Nine Carat Quilt Along! I am SEW glad you are here! If you haven’t got your pattern yet, you can get the digital pattern from Cut Loose Press or the paper paper pattern from QBPN. If you’re joining us late, you can still sign up as long as the quilt along is still going.

Videos for this week

I’ve been making lots of videos for this quilt along: demos, advice, reveals and such. Here’s the video I have for this week:

Making Nine Patch Blocks

I will be adding videos throughout the quilt along. You can view all of the currently available videos at any time in this playlist.

On the Schedule for this Week

This week we’re going to make our 9-Patch Blocks. I know this sounds pretty straight forward, but there are a few tips and things we can talk about. You can watch my demo in the video for this week. BUT, for this post I want to talk a little bit about the scant 1/4″ seam.

Is the “scant” quarter inch seam a scam?

I read somewhere (on a thread or forum or something similar) where someone was saying that a SCANT 1/4″ seam is scam because if you’re consistent everything will still line up. BUT, is that true? I do have a post about accuracy versus precision that talks a little about this, but let’s take a look at this with some diagrams to show how this works in practice.

Disclaimer: if you aren’t bothered by being a little off, that is perfectly ok. I’m only writing this to set the record straight as to whether or not all of this actually makes a difference.

First, what is a SCANT 1/4″ seam? A scant 1/4″ seam would mean sewing what looks like just a little to the inside of the 1/4″. How much to the inside would vary based on factors such as what thread you use and how thick your fabric is. This is meant to account for the thread and fabric thickness when you press the seams. It’s also meant to help you achieve the “perfect” 1/4″ seam in your finished blocks. The best way to find your perfect quarter inch seam is to practice and experiment. For example: sew (4) 1-1/2″ strips together and measure the width. You’re going for the seam size that gives you an exact width of 4-1/2″. When you’re “just a little off” for such a small piece, you’ll get more and more off over a whole quilt top.

So, as much as I would love for it to be true that the SCANT 1/4″ seam is a scam, most of the time that’s not the case. Consistency (without accuracy) works for some blocks, but only some of them. I drew up some diagrams to show that it doesn’t work (most of the time).

The blocks have to have the same number of seams, going in the same directions:
Let’s start with something super easy like a rail fence quilt. In the pictures below you see (5) 2-1/2″ strips sewn together to make a rail fence block. I know the two pieces on the end of the sewn together block look bigger; it is meant to represent the fact that there are no 1/4″ seams on the outside edges yet, as it would be in an actual block.

The seam allowance in these blocks is an accurate (or scant or perfect or whatever you want to call it) 1/4″ seam. So, we can turn one of the blocks in the opposite direction, and they will still match up.

Now, let’s see how this looks in the blocks that I drew with a slightly larger seam. I think it’s 1/32″ too large, so only barely off.

Side by side, they don’t look too far off, but when you put them together you can see that the block on the right is a little shorter along the width than the block beside it that is turned on the length of the strips. This is because the length of the blocks will stay whatever length you cut the strips, but the width of the block is dependent on the size of your seam. This is a simple block and that discrepancy is fudgible. BUT, the difference gets worse as the quilts get bigger and/or the blocks get more complicated.

Let’s see this in some blocks that are similar to what we’re using for this quilt.
Technically, a quilt with only nine patch blocks should be a great candidate for “just be consistent and everything will match up fine”. A quilt full of nine patch blocks would mean all of the blocks have the same number of seams in both directions. So, it should be fine right? BUT, does the slice and swap that we’re going to do in a few weeks change anything?

In the blocks below, we have two nine patch blocks that we are going to cut into quarters and swap out the pieces between them. I made the seam allowance for these 1/32″ too big just like in the rail fence example.

In the picture below, you can see the lines where I’m going to cut the blocks into quarters. To make the math easy, let’s just say that the squares in these blocks are 6-1/2″. This would mean that the blocks should finish with 6 squares”. So, you’d need to cut your blocks 3″ inches from the seam. BUT, if your seam allowance was a little too big, you’d have less than 6″ to work with. This would mean that two of your quadrants would be cut 3″ from the seam and the other two would be a little smaller. You can TRY to just measure the width of the center block and divide that in half. BUT, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll come up with a number that’s easy for you to measure with your ruler.

In the picture above, the difference is so minor, that it’s hard to tell without looking closely. So, it doesn’t look like it would be too bad now, but let’s try to finish this block and see what happens.

In the picture below, I have the quadrants swapped around. You can tell that the center strips and squares are not all the same size, and it’s a little more obvious than before. However, I kept both of the blocks turned in the same direction. So, for now, they will still match up.

Unfortunately, with disappearing style blocks, it’s hard (and sometimes impossible) to predict whether or not you can keep all the blocks turned the same way as they started. If you want to get a good color balance, you may end up rotating some pieces here and there. Let’s look at how these blocks will match up if you turned one of them in the opposite direction.

The picture below shows both blocks with a seam allowance that is 1/32″ too large. They are consistent but not accurate, and they are obviously not matching up. This is fudgible (to an extent), and I’d be lying if I said I’ve never fudged anything like this myself. BUT, you’d definitely be making it easier on yourself (me included) to try to find your scant/perfect 1/4″ seam.

So, if you didn’t believe me before, do you now? Can you see how the accuracy of your seam does make a difference over just being consistent? Another thing to consider is that all of these 9/32″ seams were drawn with CAD software. So, they really are 100% consistent, unlike real life sewing which isn’t always the case. So, most of the time this affect would be amplified by the fact that what we call “consistent” in our real life sewing is super hard to be perfectly consistent.

Get a custom label for your quilt

Don’t forget to order your custom label! If you want a custom Nine Carat Quilt label label with your name on it, you can get one! I order all of my labels from Melanie at Southern Charm Quilts/Meander and Make. They are great labels. You can order your Nine Carat Quilt label HERE (affiliate link). Use the coupon code SNUGGLEBUGSTITCHING at Meander and Make for 10% off.

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 – Gather Fabrics & Cut Pieces
Week 2 – You are currently at the Week 2 Post
Week 3 – Snowballs
Week 4 – Cut, Rearrange, and Resew your 9-Patches
Week 5 – Assemble Your Quilt Top

Prize for this Week

Our prize for this week is two PDF patterns from me!

This one is open to anyone.

If whoever wins this one has already has one or both of these patterns, they can pick a different pattern(s).

To be eligible for prizes:

– You must be following me and all our sponsors on Instagram and post at least one progress picture for the week on Instagram by Monday at 7:00 PM Central Time. You must tag me @snugglebugstitching in your posts and use the #ninecaratqal.

Here are the Instagram accounts you need to be following to be elligible for prizes:
@snugglebugstitching
@benartex_fabrics
@quiltbpn
@cutloosepress
@thegypsyquilter

-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.