Nine Carat Quilt Along: Week 4

It’s Week 4 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:

Slice and Swap

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 cut our blocks into quadrants, rearrange them, and sew them back together. This will finish up our blocks for this quilt top.

The slice and swap that we do for this pattern is the reason we need to keep a “scant” or “perfect” quarter inch seam instead of only having to worry about being consistent like you would normally be able to do with nine patch blocks. You can check out my post from Week 2 for more details.

The video for this week goes over the whole process of slicing and swapping, and (as promised) I show you a method for dealing with it if your quarter inch seams were a little off. It makes a lot more sense if you watch demo, so I’ll move on and let you watch it if you need to.

Pressing
Let’s talk a little bit about pressing. Just a little because I’m not a huge stickler for pressing. I do end up talking about pressing a lot because it’s one of the things I get the most questions about. When I say I’m not overly concerned about pressing, that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s important. I know pressing is important for getting nice results, but I’m not going to say that one method is the “right” method. Press to the sides and nest, press open, spin the seams, nest the seams between the blocks and then press your cross section seams open, or any combination… do whatever works best for you.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. I sort of feel silly putting pressing instructions in patterns. I put them in there for people who want them, but I feel like most quilters are going to just do whatever they want to do anyway. There’s nothing wrong with using the technique(s) that work best for you.

What about twisting your seams?
This has never bothered me, and it never will. In fact, at least half of the time I do it on purpose if I can get the seams to nest better that way. I will always priortize nicely matched up seams over something that you can’t even see once the quilt is finished anyway. Someone mentioned that if you fix the twisted seams it will lay nicer. Most of the time I don’t have any issues with this anyway, but the few times I did? I just did extra free motion quilting over that area; problem solved. I do have video on how to deal with the twisted seams (if they bother you). You can watch that HERE.

Note: My perspective on this may be different than yours. I quilt all of my quilts myself on a domestic machine. Any difficulties as a result of my techniques are only hurting me. (BUT, let’s be honest: if it was causing me any trouble, I wouldn’t do it. I’m not a fan of extra work or extra hassle without extra results.) I’m not sure if this would even be an issue for longarming or not because I’ve never used a longarm and never sent a quilt off to a longarmer… BUT, if your longarmer tells you to fix twisted seams, you should mind those instructions.

I also do almost exclusively free motion quilting at this point (and not computerized/programmed free motion quilting). This means that I have complete control over adding extra quilting wherever I want/need to and am able to run my quilting lines over the exact point needed to hide any weirdness. If I was doing straight line/walking foot quilting or using a computerized long arm for free motion quilting, I wouldn’t be able to do that as easily (or at all). So I guess my point here is… make your decision based on what works best for you, and don’t worry so much about what someone else does.

If the twisted seams do bother you, you can always unpick and turn them the correct way. Again, whatever works best for you. Your quilt; your rules! I’m going to do whatever I want to I want to do, and you should too. BUT, I was a little curious to see what other quilters think about twisted seams. I noticed the twisted seam below while I was working on my blocks for this quilt. I took a super scientific instagram poll to see what other people thought. I also posted a picture of how the seam looks on the front in case that was a factor as far as the decision to leave it or redo it. The poll results: 78% leave it; 22% redo it. What would you do?

Get a custom label for your quilt

Don’t forget to order your custom label! If you want a custom Nine Carat Quilt 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 – Make 9-Patches
Week 3 – Snowballs
Week 4 – You are currently at the Week 4 post
Week 5 – Assemble Your Quilt Top

Prize for this Week

Our prize for this week is my Ninja Star Sampler patterns to make the quilt top pictured above. Ninja Star Sampler was my first block of the month back in 2024. This is kind of a cool prize because I closed it after the block of the month, and it isn’t available to purchase anymore. I am gradually writing full quilt patterns for six of the blocks. You can find those HERE. As of the time I published this post, I only have January done so far, but they will all be added to that same link as they are finished.

These patterns are in PDF formant. So this prize is available to both a US winner or an international winner.

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.