Drunkard's Path QAL - Winners!

Thanks to everyone who joined in our QAL and thanks to Kristie for being an awesome partner in crime (er, curves)!  I loved seeing all your quilt tops (and finished quilts - you guys are way more on top of this than I am!) - if you didn't see them yet, check out all the links here.

Thanks again to our lovely sponsors who donated the prizes... now it's time to draw our winners!

The winner of the fat quarter bundle of Tula Pink's Prince Charming fabric donated by The Fabric Shoppe is:

Alli at B. Yazoo, and...

The winner of the $40 gift certificate from Fresh Squeezed Fabrics is:


Beth at Sewing for Sanity!

Yay, congrats to both of you!  We'll be in touch to get you your prizes.

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Drunkard's Path - Finished Quilt Top and Link-up

Well, I can't believe the end is here! I have had so much fun with this quilt-along - and really my favorite part has been seeing all of your quilts progress, and especially hearing that this QAL inspired some of you to try something you wouldn't have otherwise. I can't tell you how happy that makes me! I hope you all enjoyed it and can't wait to see your finished quilt tops.

Speaking of which, I finished my own quilt top yesterday afternoon, just in time - and unfortunately at a time when photography conditions/lighting weren't great. So apologies for the somewhat grainy photo. I am excited about how the design turned out though and can't wait to quilt and bind this so that we can start using it as our couch throw! Can you believe that this will be the first quilt that I have ever kept? Lawson was very excited when I told him that this quilt was for us.

Your turn! Link up your finished quilt top using the linky below for a chance to win one of the fabulous prizes donated by Fabric Shoppe and Fresh Squeezed Fabrics. The linky is open for a week and then Kristie and I will draw winners next Monday 12/5. You can link up either here or on Kristie's blog, it will work either way :). If you have a blog, link up your blog post so we can all come say hi, but if you don't have a blog, feel free to link up a flickr photo instead.




Thanks again so much for joining in the QAL!  I hope you all had as much fun as I did!!

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Drunkard's Path QAL: Assembling your quilt top

So here we are, at the final post in the QAL instructions - and it's really not too complicated. To finish your quilt top, go ahead and sew together the blocks or strips/rows that you pieced, following the same general approach that I described in the last post, about assembling your blocks.  Many of you have already moved right along to this step, and have your tops all finished up already, great work!  It has been so fun seeing your quilts come together. 

Since we are both running a bit behind, and guessing that some of you may be too, Kristie and I decided to add another week to the schedule before we post the link-up to show off your finished quilt top - it will not be posted on Monday, November 28th.  We'll leave it open a week to give everyone lots of time to pop by and link up their finished quilt top, and then we'll draw for the great prizes from Fabric Shoppe and Fresh Squeezed Fabrics on Monday, December 5th... so make sure you finish up your quilt top and then come back to link up!

As far as where I am in my sewing... I finished sewing, ironing and trimming all my 1/4 circle blocks on Friday, and then spent some time mulling the different layout options.  I thought that I wanted to go with a scalloped or wavy line design, but when I tried laying out the blocks, I just wasn't feeling it.

I even tried laying out almost all the blocks in this design below - and it just felt to rainbow-y for this quilt, which we plan to use on our couch.  Also I guess I think that this would look better on a larger scale, it just makes the blocks feel to small I think.

Inspired by this quilt, which I saw linked to somewhere recently and now can't remember where it was, I tried a similar design (the same layout, but my + blocks are the inverse of the way they did it), and I decided to go with this.  My plan is to have the colors more interspersed with eachother rather than in rainbow order, which should help make it feel less rainbow-y.  I also appreciate that this means that I can just sew each set of four 1/4 circles into a small block and not try to keep track of the larger design until later!

I have been sewing away and getting this assembled, so stay tuned for the finished quilt top!

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Drunkard's Path QAL - Assembling your Blocks

OK, I have a confession... I am behind in making my blocks and not ready to assemble them yet!  I feel bad about this, but luckily we left lots of time in the schedule for the next two steps so I should be able to catch up by next week.  Hopefully this is reassuring if you are running a bit behind too! 

Not to make excuses, but just so no one gets turned away from this QAL thinking that it takes forever to sew the curves... really the problem has just been that I have had next to no time to sew in the past few weeks.  I had a really bad cold and then last week we finally bought a car after our move.  This past weekend I spent a good chunk of time sewing and got most of my curved blocks sewn, but not quite all of them, and I just know that I am going to want to play around with layouts and see how they all look, so I really didn't want to rush this step.

So, OK, I am a delinquent, but the QAL goes on regardless!  I took some photos to illustrate this step and it's not too complicated, so hopefully this is enough of an explanation.  You can also jump over to Kristie's blog to see her post, which should be more complete than mine :).

Once you have picked out your layout, you are going to want to assemble your smaller 1/4 square blocks into larger blocks before you assemble those blocks into the quilt top.  The number of smaller squares in each of your larger blocks will depend on the layout that you choose, but a good size is a 4x4 block as I have laid out above.  If you are lucky enough to have a design wall, you can lay out your whole quilt on the wall and then sew the blocks one by one.  If not, depending on your design you can probably lay the blocks out one at a time as you sew them, or lay it all out on the floor and then keep the squares for each block organized using cardstock or paper.  Or really whatever works for you!

When I sew together blocks like this, I like to make stacks for each of the rows that make up the block so that I can pick up a stack to sew at my machine and keep things in the correct order.  Putting a pin on the first (far left) block can help you to keep track of which block is at the end (and which way is up) as you sew across the row. You may or may not have to use pins as you sew these seams depending on whether your layout involves matching any circle edges - if your design has 1/2, 3/4 or full circles, then you will need to pin at least the seam where the quarter circles meet to keep those edges lined up.  You can of course pin all your seams if you find it helpful, but if you find it easier for any seams that don't have to match the circles, you can skip pinning them and just place them together.

I keep track of the order of the rows by keeping them laid out in the right order or stacked on top of each other; if you are worried about keeping track of the right order as you move them around, you could also label them with numbered sticky notes.  You'll press each row before you sew them together to make the overall quilt block.  I like to press my seams open, but many folks prefer to press seams to one side, and then alternate which direction they press for each row so that the seams lock together as they sew their rows together, so go ahead and press whichever way you prefer.  When you sew the rows together, you will definitely want to use pins to keep all the corner seams nice and lined up.  Go ahead and press the seams again, and you have a completed block.

If you are on a roll and sew all your larger blocks together to make a quilt top, I will understand - but technically that step is next week in the QAL.  This should be a relief if you are running a bit behind, like me! 

I'd love to hear how the QAL is going for you!  It's been fun seeing everyone's photos in the Flickr group - if you have been quilting along but aren't on Flickr (or haven't had any photos to post yet), feel free to leave a comment here and share how it's going.

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Drunkard's Path QAL - Piecing your blocks

Now that you hopefully have all your fabric cut out, it's time to start piecing your blocks!  The original block-piecing tutorial has the instructions for how to piece this block, so you can refer back to that, but I thought I would share a few more tips as well now.

If you haven't yet, I strongly suggest sewing up a few sample blocks to get the hang of it, and trimming them down to size.  That way, if you are having any issues with the piecing you will be able to tell before you have sewn up a whole bunch.  I doubt you'll have a problem but it's always good to test things out, right?

Once you've tried out the piecing and gotten comfortable with it, you will hopefully be able to whiz right through piecing these blocks!  As you can see, they are totally amenable to chain piecing, which can make the piecing go really quickly.

After you piece your blocks, you will need to press them flat and then trim them to size... I personally like to sew some, and then press and trim them, then go back and sew some more, etc.  That keeps it more interesting for me than being left with a whole huge pile to press and trim at the end.  But hey, whatever way you prefer to work is fine of course.

As far as pressing seams, if you are planning to assemble your blocks in a design that has half, 3/4 or whole circles, then you may want to think about trying to press your seams in alternate directions so that they nest nicely.  If you aren't doing a design with any half, 3/4 or whole circles then you really don't need to worry about it because those seams won't be abutting anyways.  And really it will turn out fine even if you don't worry about it; for my original DP quilt, I just pressed some in and some out and then some of the seams ended up nesting and some didn't and it was all fine in the end anyways.

As you can see I still have quite a few blocks left to sew up!  Can't wait to see your progress too.  And if you have any questions or tips to share, feel free to leave them in the comments or start a discussion thread over in the Flickr group!

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Drunkard's Path QAL - Cutting your fabric

Ladies and Gentleman, start your rotary cutters! (and scissors).  We are ready to start cutting!  I'll be showing the approach using the templates I designed, and Kristie will be using the Go! Baby cutter, so hop over there if you have one of those fun machines :)

I decided to use several sets of Kona cotton charm packs in the Dusty selection with Kona coal as my contrasting "solid" for my quilt.  I haven't decided the exact size that I am making yet, but I want it to be a decent sized throw/large lap quilt, so I started with 4 charm packs (since I am not using the tans/beiges/browns from them I am hoping this will be enough), and 2 yards of the coal (although I may need a bit more).  The color scheme is inspired by several beautiful quilts that I have seen that pair rainbow solids with grey - this gorgeous diamonds mini by Lindsay of Lindsay Sews, and this fun pinwheel quilt from Spontaneous Threads.  Both of these examples used the Bright kona charms but I was more drawn to the Dusty selection, especially since I am hoping we will use this in our living room and I want it to be a bit understated.

So, back to cutting your fabric!  I actually probably already covered most of what you need to know in the block-cutting tutorial, but I thought I would go through a few parts in more detail here.  First, hop back to that page to print the template if you haven't already yet.

Hopefully you have purchased fabric and figured out how many blocks you need to cut from each at this point for your design (although I am actually planning to play around with my blocks once I get them sewn up and see what design appeals to me most - so that approach is fine too!).  If you are cutting any charms from yardage, as I mentioned in the fabric requirements post, Elizabeth from Oh! Fransson has a good tutorial for cutting charm squares.  I would note, however, that for making blocks using my templates, while you don't want to be too sloppy, you don't need to stress out about being exceedingly precise in your charm cutting since you will be trimming the final quarter-circle blocks down to the exact size.

I found that it worked fine to stack the cut strips two on top of each other (so four layers of fabric deep), and three in a row, and then cut them in rows.  I am sure this is not the best way to do it if you need them to be exactly precisely 5" square, but since a tiny bit different will be fine for our purposes, this was a great way to speed things up.  If you can tell you are a bit off, just try to err on the side of larger rather than smaller I would say.

Once I had my stack of contrasting solid charms cut, I used a disappearing pen to mark the quarter-circle on the square, lining up the template with the corner.  You can also rotary cut around the template or use scissors to cut around the template while holding it, this just seemed easiest to me.

Then I like to use that first fabric piece that I cut out as a kind of fabric template when I cut the rest with scissors (again, feel free to use a rotary cutter or do this however is easiest for you - just wanted to share what worked well for me).  I line that fabric template with the corner of the charms - and when I am using precut charms I try to line up the edge with the outer tips of the pinked edge, rather than the inner one - I think that is most accurate and avoids cutting too large a inner curve piece and thus leaving too small an outer curve piece.

I just hold onto that piece of fabric and hold it in place as I cut around with scissors, being careful not to cut anything off the grey piece that I am using as a fabric template.  Then I got ahead and use the scissors to trim the two ends (3/8").  I found that I could cut 4 pieces of fabric at once with my prewashed Kona coal, but only 3 pieces with the unwashed precuts, since they were more slippery and it was harder to keep them lined up properly while cutting.

This may sound tedious but it actually goes really quickly!  I had only cut a portion of my fabric when I took the picture below but I finished cutting the rest later and my total cutting time, including cutting out the kona coal charms and cutting all the inner/outer curve pieces, was about 2 hours (for a larger lap quilt).

I hope that helps, and happy cutting!  I'd love to see your progress as you get going over in the Flickr group.


{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Drunkard's Path Block Design Ideas

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get going on this QAL!  One of my favorite things about this block design is that there are so, so many different design options - I can't wait to see all the different directions that you all take it.  Kristie has been sharing some great inspiration pics on her site too, so if you haven't checked them out, make sure to jump over there too and take a look.

I shared a bunch of design ideas before, but many of them were just sketches, so when I made my first drunkard's path quilt top, I played around a bit with the fabric and different layouts as I was making it...

Drunkard's Path - Scrappy

I mentioned in my fabric requirements post that the cutting using my templates is easiest if you are going to use both the inner and outer curve piece from each fabric square in your design... But there are some pretty cool designs that use only inner pieces or only outer pieces from your colored/patterned fabric.  If you wanted to go this route, you could alternate the blocks in your quilt, or you could even think about making two quilts - one with the positive pattern and one with the negative pattern.  Here are a few examples of this kind of pattern:

Drunkard's Path Pinwheels

Drunkard's Path Diagonal (I love this one!)

Drunkard's Path - Inward facing circles

Drunkard's Path - Outward Facing Circles

If you want to keep it simple and use a design that will use equal numbers of your patterned/colored inner and outer curve pieces, there are luckily some gorgeous designs like that too.  Here are just a few more, in addition to the flower-like design I used in my first quilt (and there are lots of other ideas out there).

Drunkard's Path - Scallop

Drunkard's Path - another one

I have been thinking about the design and layout as a repeating 4x4 block, but as many of the inspiration quilts that Kristie has shared show, you can really also think of it as a whole quilt design - so don't feel that you have to take a block-based approach.   I wish that I had had the fabric (and well, the patience) to try out larger layouts when I was playing around with these - the patterns just get more interesting the larger you go.  Hopefully these help to spark your imagination and you can get an idea of how cool they look when you start to see a larger pattern!  I had a lot of fun sketching out different ideas with graph paper and colored pencils, so feel free to play around with that as you think about possible designs.

Don't forget to share your photos in the Flickr group as you start picking fabrics and thinking about your design - we can't wait to see what you come up with!


{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Drunkard's Path Fabric Requirements

We know that folks may need a few weeks to decide what fabric they want to use for the quilt-along and get it shipped to them if they are ordering it online, so we wanted to make sure you had the fabric requirements for the quilt far enough in advance.  And check it out, we started a Drunkard's Path QAL Flickr group so that we can all get to know each other and you guys can share pics of your fabric selections and progress as we get going!

Haven't picked my fabric for this QAL yet so this is from my earlier quilt!

As I mentioned in my block tutorial, the templates that I made use 5" fabric squares, so if you have charm squares, now is a great time to use them!  You can also cut your own 5" squares to use from a layer cake of 10" squares (makes 4 charm squares per layer cake piece), from fat quarters (makes 12 charm squares), or from yardage (56 charm squares in a yard of fabric).  Elizabeth from Oh, Fransson! has a tutorial for cutting charm squares from yardage that you may find helpful.

Speaking of my earlier quilt top...

The drunkard's path quilt design is made up of larger blocks made up of 16 of the smaller blocks; using my block tutorial, each of these larger blocks will measure 15" square.  For each larger square you will need a total of 16 charm squares, 8 of the patterned/colored fabrics and 8 of your contrasting solid (off-white in my quilt top above).  For my central park quilt, I used nine of the larger blocks to make a 45" square quilt, which you can think of as either a large baby quilt or a small lap quilt.  For a smaller baby quilt, you could make just four blocks, making a 30" square quilt - which you could also add borders to and make it a bit bigger if you wanted.  I'll provide the fabric requirements for both of these sizes, but if you wanted to make a larger quilt, you should be able to figure out how much fabric you need pretty easily!

The one tricky part of this is that the amount of fabric you will need depends a bit on the design that you are planning to use... Kristie and I will both be posting more about the different design options with this quilt next week (and Kristie had some more awesome inspiration pics up in her fabric requirements post today), and you can check out my earlier post (with lots more drawings like the one above).  Cutting both pattern pieces out of a single charm square, like I have you do in my tutorial, will only work out right if you are going to use both the inner and outer curve piece from that charm, like you would in the pink/red designs above.  If you are planning to do a design like in the yellow/green designs above where your patterned/colored pieces are all inner or all outer curves, you will need more fabric and the cutting will be a bit more involved.

Here are the fabric requirements for a basic quilt design where you'll be using both the inner and outer curves from each charm square (see the paragraph above for the number of charms you can get from different fabric cuts if you are cutting your own):

Small baby quilt - 30" square
For the quilt top: 32 pattern/colored charms, 32 contrasting solid charms
For the quilt back - 1 yard fabric
For the binding (using 2.5" wide strips cut on the grain): 3/8 yard (or you may be able to get by with just 1/4 yard, but it could be close)

Larger baby quilt/lap quilt - 45" square
For the quilt top: 72 pattern/colored charms, 72 contrasting solid charms [Thanks to Katie for pointing out the error in this originally - sorry about that!!]
For the quilt back: 3 yards (or 1.5 yards if you add a 3-4" pieced strip to make it wide enough)
For the binding (using 2.5" wide strips cut on the grain): 3/8 yard

Let me know if you have any questions!  And don't forget to go check out and join the Flickr group :)


{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Drunkard's Path Block Tutorial

While it's not the usual order to start a quilt-along with the block tutorial before the fabric requirements and other design info, since Kristie and I are each using a different block construction approach, we thought it made sense to show you the choices before you committed to one way or the other by buying fabric.  I also know that some folks are intimidated by sewing curves so I wanted to be sure that you had a chance to try it out and see that it isn't that hard!

Kristie is using the Go! Baby cutter to cut her drunkard's path pieces, and I am using templates that I designed.  The technique with my templates is actually pretty similar to how I made my wonky drunkard's path blocks - you don't have to worry as much about cutting and sewing the pieces perfectly exactly, and then you trim them to the correct size.  If you'd like to use another approach such as more precise templates, wonky blocks, or anything else, you are free to go for that too!

I am also psyched that the templates I made use 5" squares - that's right, this means you can easily use charm squares and avoid a whole bunch of fabric cutting if you want!  Maybe you have some charms you have been looking to put to use?  You can also cut your own 5" squares for some or all of the blocks, of course.

Download the template HERE - I suggest saving it to your computer, then when you print be sure to set page scaling to none.  There is a 1" box on there for you to check the scale - make sure it measures 1" and you are good to go.  I'll go into this more in a later post, but if you are making a design where you will have equal numbers of the inner and outer curve pieces from each pattern, you will only need to use the inner curve template piece - just ignore the outer curve template piece.  (This is what I did for my central park drunkard's path).

Here's how to make the blocks:

Start with 2 contrasting 5" fabric squares.  Put the inner curve template piece down on the squares, with the corners aligned.

Cut around the curve of the template.  Note: when I made my quilt, I cut the first using the template and then used one of the cut out inner curve fabric pieces as the guide to cut the rest.  You can also mark with a fabric pen and cut along the line, or you can use a rotary cutter (and possibly use template plastic to make the template more durable).  I found that I could cut 4-5 pieces of fabric at once and so it went pretty quickly!

After you have cut the inner curve piece, trim the 3/8" off the ends of the outer curve pieces as shown above (I usually just eyeballed it and used my scissors, but you could measure and/or use a rotary cutter if you prefer).

Put the inner curve piece facing up with the corner facing to the upper left, and then place the outer curve piece facing down on top, with the corner facing to the lower left, as shown above.  Align pieces so that your needle is 1/4" in from the curved edge.

You can basically sew straight for the first 1/4"-1/2", until the pieces start to curve away from each other.

After the first bit, you will need to pull the top (outer curve) piece to the left so that it stays lined up on top of the lower (inner curve) piece as you sew around the edge.  I just pull the top piece into place gently, and don't pull the bottom piece at all - the goal is the keep the edges lined up and avoid any puckers in your seam, without stretching the fabric too much.  Continue sewing with a 1/4" seam, adjusting as you go - it doesn't take too long once you get into the hang of it.

As you get towards the end, continue to pull the pieces into place so the edges are aligned - you should basically be able to sew straight for the last little bit too.

This is what it should look like after you sew the seam.

Press the seam flat in whichever direction you feel like.  If you wanted to you could clip the curve inside the seam allowance before you press but I didn't have any problems getting it to lay flat without clipping and it seems like it will be more durable if you don't clip it.

Now, to trim the block, place the block with the inner curve facing to the lower left corner as shown above.  Take a square ruler and line up the 1" lines with the edges of the curve on both the left and lower sides (red arrows above), then trim off the edges.  The final trimmed size of the block will be 4.25" so you may want to check that the block isn't going to be too small by making sure the fabric goes past the 4.25" lines (green arrows above); you may have to rotate the ruler slightly to get it to fit.  (note: I slightly modified the template after I took these photos - so you will have more to trim in this step and less to trim below, ie, the amount you trim in each step will be about equal).

After you trim the first two sides, flip the block around so that the inner curve faces towards the upper right corner, and line up the just-trimmed edges with the 4.25" lines (green arrows), then trim the other two edges.

And then check it out - since you lined up the circles with the 1" line when you trimmed, your blocks line up perfectly!!  And I promise, the trimming part gets quick as you do it, too. 

Let me know how your blocks turn out if you try this, or if you have any questions!

DONATE TO SUPPORT THIS TUTORIAL - this tutorial is provided free of charge, if you would like to show your appreciation and support the free patterns I provide here, you can donate here (or it helps if you click through to any of the amazon links on this site, whether you purchase that particular product or not!).  Thanks for your support!

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD.  Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}