Tips For Making Your Patchwork Project 2
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Unlike dressmaking, machine patchwork relies on quarter inch seam allowances. This is easy
to achieve if you have a quarter inch piecing foot on your sewing machine. When using a
quarter inch piecing foot, the distance from the needle to the edge of the foot is exactly
a quarter of an inch. To make a neat strong seam with your sewing machine you should
reduce your stitch length down to give you a few more stitches to the inch. If you are
joining nine 4” squares of fabric into a 3 by 3 block you will be taking a quarter of
an inch off each edge of each patch that is joined. You want these edges to match up so it
is vital that each seam allowance is the same measurement.
From this you can see that the squares need to be cut accurately in the first place and
equally need to be joined accurately.
Using your three basic pieces of cutting equipment – rotary cutter, rotary mat and
ruler – squares and strips of fabric are a doddle to cut.
There is a very simple design based on blocks of 9 squares called a 9 patch block. By
arranging the 9 squares in different patterns within each block of nine, very interesting
designs may be achieved. Simple designs with squares are easy to try and the results can
look very attractive – and appear far more complicated than they are.
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