Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Template Cutting Time

Okay, so we are ready to make our template and start cutting our fabric. You will need to know if you are hand sewing or machine sewing at this point, because your templates will be different sizes (for the machine sewing template you will have ¼” seam allowances already added to the template)



Instructions for Hand Sewing template:




Cut a 3.5” square from your template plastic or stiff cardboard ( a cereal box would work great). Take your time and make sure you get a perfect square, because a wonky square will only cause you heartache in the end.




Once you have your square, take your ruler and measure over 2” from the left side on the top and make a mark right at the very edge of the top.

Now make a mark 1.5” from the left on the bottom.




Now take your straight edge and connect your dots until you have this .




Carefully cut along the line and take one of your shapes (you only need one) and lay it out so that it looks just like this.




Now write “ 7" Whirlygig template”, or “this end up” or something on it in permanent ink so that you will know at a glance if you have your template right side up.



Instructions for Machine Sewing template:



Cut a 4” x 4.5" rectangle from your template plastic or stiff cardboard ( a cereal box would work great). Take your time and make sure you get a perfectly squared off rectangle, because wonky corners will only cause you heartache in the end.

Once you have your rectangle,lay it out with the 4.5" part at the top and bottom and the 4" on the sides.

Take your ruler and measure over 2 1/2” from the left side on the top and make a mark right at the very edge of the top.

Now make a mark 2” from the left on the bottom. Sorry for the blurry pic.




Now take your straight edge and connect your dots until you have this .




Carefully cut along the line and take one of your shapes (you only need one) and lay it out so that it looks just like this.




Now write “7” Whirlygig template”, or “this end up” or something on it in permanent ink so that you will know at a glance if you have your template right side up.



Next up is cutting into our fabric.

8 comments:

Beautiful Mess said...

EEK! I can't start tomorrow, but I think Friday I should be able to start.

Third times a charm said...

No rush. I am sure we will all work at different paces. I just wanted to get the next phase up so people wouldn't think I had abandoned the project. Do you have a Joann Fabrics near you and if so do you need a coupon? I can email you one if you would like.

Anonymous said...

oh how i miss joanne fabrics! i can not wait to get back up to alaska. you'd think california would have all kinds of great stores and things available...not in my area. picked up my fabrics last night (at the crafting world's equivalent of a dive bar). i do love the fabrics i got and will make my templates sometime today.

Third times a charm said...

Please post pics of your fabrics ak sapphire. When are you moving back to Alaska? My husband had TDY there for 6 months long ago before we were married and he loved it.

Anonymous said...

bobby and i grew up in alaska actually...me in fairbanks and hubby in anderson (village north of denali, a few miles away from clear air station). we left in 2005 and have since lived in 4 different states. in 2007 bobby joined the air force and we're headed for elmendorf afb in july. should be interesting to be back in our old stompin' gounds...sorta.
btw, just posted a new blog about starting my quilt...have a look see if you'd like.

Anonymous said...

quick Q...for our template, do we need to keep the other half of the square/rectangle we cut out to use later? or are we only using the one side?

Anonymous said...

It's a great idea to do this on your blog...I wish I had time to quilt along with you!

Third times a charm said...

To answer Ak Sapphire's question, both sides of the template should be the same so you can either keep the extra piece as a backup or throw it away.