We are moving across the state today and changed our plans a little bit skipping Glenwood Springs area and going straight to Ouray in the north part of the southwest in the mountains. It says they have wireless – we will see how good it is – if I am not back on for days it means the connection was bad! I will leave you with this hand piecing tutorial.
I have had several people ask me how do I hand piece in the motorhome, while we are settled at night and when the vehicle is in motion. I put together a tutorial so you can see step by step how I do it – this is my method, others might do it differently but this works for me. These photos are from when we are settled in a campground – when we are traveling my legs are my work table! 
and I’m very careful with the scissors – use them quickly and then they go back in the cosmetic bag I use for the tools.
draw your seam line with pencil on the wrong side of the fabric
tools needed to do the job - square with the seam allowance marked, scissors, pin cushion with pins, a thimble if you want, thread and needle, sashing border fabric
pin your first side to the border fabric, I have all fabric cut in advance at home before starting the trip. The borders are cut 1 1/2 inches and it is the width of the fabric.
when you are done piecing the first border cut the border fabric square with the block
repeat what you did on the first border and sew the second border
repeat with the 3rd border trimming the sashing off at the end of each border
add the 4th border
press the block and square up the corners
finished block - each block takes me about 20 minutes to hand piece no matter if we are driving or if we are parked at the campsite - only difference is that the pressing and trimming wait until we are at a campsite with electricity or if we have the generator running to charge up batteries.
blocks finished plus the demo block gives me 16 blocks - I need 19 more.
When I get all of the blocks done they will be joined with white strips and then a final black dotted border around that. You can find the pattern at the Twiddle Tail Shop on line. I ordered my black dotted fabric from there when I got the pattern.
when we were driving to the campground Friday afternoon I saw that the quilt shop I was going to search for while here was just down the road from the campground - maybe only a mile away. First thing this morning while Mike was working on his photos I drove to the quilt shop to look around and found this pattern. Will be perfect for the motorhome - it is only 12 x 12 plus the size border you want to add. The shop is called "Mountain Lady" she has a lot of outdoor/wildlife theme kits.
some of my photos are a little blurry and I didn’t want to go back and take new ones – sorry
{ 7 comments }
the quilt is coming along nice. I love that pattern, will really go with bear wall hanging perfect.
Karen what is the tool you are using to square up the corners? blessings, marlene
Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing. Love the polka dot fabric.
Yep I wanna know too, what is that squaring up too?
Crispy
great tutorial Karen, helping me to get my mojo working ;o) enjoy the trip, Nettie
.-= Nettie´s last blog ..Stamps Happen! =-.
LOL – that squaring up tool is just my Dear Jane ruler – it is a 5 inch square but the way it was made looked confusing to me so I put quarter inch tape all around it so I could comfortably use it for marking quarter inch seam allowances. I have it along for my dear jane if and when I decide to work on it this trip so had it handy to square the corners on So Charming. I mark my seams on my Dear Jane like that too for hand piecing – the tape just makes it clearer.
Regina I thought that the pattern would go with the woodsy-mountain-nature theme also! I’m trying to figure out where in this tiny camper with little wall space to put it when I make it and I think I will put it by the dinette side (there is space) or on the bathroom door which has a nice space too.
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