"Woven" quilt by Kati Spencer in Scraps, Inc.

Do you follow Kati at From the Blue Chair? She's one of the first bloggers I started following when I discovered the online quilting community and have since gotten to know her through the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild. She has a great eye for design and is always creating beautiful quilts. A few months ago I had the pleasure of quilting this fantastic scrappy quilt, which she called "Woven," to be included in the new book Scraps, Inc. I didn't have time to get any photos of the full quilt before returning it to Kati but I got some more detailed shots of the quilting. I've been dying to share them for months, and I finally get to!

 The scrappy blocks are all made from strips in different widths and Kati wanted those highlighted with straight lines.

I quilted swirls in the vertical sashing and ribbon candy in the horizontal sashing. 

At the intersections I alternated which design was on "top," creating a woven effect. At the time I didn't know that was the name Kati had chosen, so it ended up perfect!

I divided the border into two sections and repeated the swirls and ribbon candy from the sashing on a slightly larger scale.

Like most of Kati's quilts the back was pieced and added a whole new level of interest. 

I really, really love this quilt. The color scheme and fabrics, the design and layout, and the visual interest from the scrappiness all add up to an amazing quilt. I'm so excited that I got to be part of it. If you would like your own copy of Scraps, Inc. you can get one here. If you use the code SCRAPS30 you can get a discount, at least for the next few days. All of the quilts in the book that I have seen are wonderful. If you love scrappy quilts you will not be disappointed.

Bacon Quilt-Along: Adding the NOM NOM and quilting

We're almost done! For this step you will be choosing how you want to applique your letters.

To view the main post and find links to all of the steps, click here.

First you need letters! Mine are 14" tall and you can find a PDF file on Dropbox HERE. There's a pale background pattern to help you line everything up. I'd personally like to thank my awesome sister for helping me create the file, because I don't know how to do that!

You'll need to place your letters where you want them. Mine are 3 1/4" above the seam between the large background piece and the background that is included in the bacon strip. There is 1 3/4" between each letter, and 7" between the words. There is about 9" between the edges of the quilt and the letters. You may need to adjust your letters a little so that they look good to you.

Now, to applique. You can choose any method that works best for you. Because of the tight angles in the letters, doing anything with turned edges would likely be very difficult, so I'd recommend doing a raw-edge or fusible method.

I chose to cut out my letters with pinking shears, and then I glue-basted them in place. See a photo in progress HERE. Basically I laid my quilt top out on a flat surface, placed my letters where I wanted them, and then folded back one portion of each letter at a time so I could glue it in place. I didn't actually sew them on until I quilted my quilt. You may or may not want to add some pins for stability if you use this method. Mine stayed on just fine. I used Roxanne's Glue Baste, but any washable glue or lapel stick would probably work. Just don't overdo it.

Once your letters are on you're ready to prepare your backing, baste, and quilt as desired. In the photo above you can see how I quilted all the areas of mine. I did a wood-grain pattern on the background that ended up looking quite a bit like flames. I did geometric patterns in the N and M, and pebbles in the O. I put wavy lines on the bacon. 

If you'll be quilting yours on a domestic machine with your walking foot, check out what my friend Marion did on hers. It had a nice wavy effect and was easy to do! See it on Instagram here and see more details on her finished quilt blog post.

If you want to do bias bacon binding on your quilt that will be in the next post. If you want to do regular binding, go ahead and you are DONE! Please remember to share on Instagram with the hash tag #baconalong so we can all see your progress. Tag me @thequiltingmill too!

Please leave any questions in the comments and I will clarify anything you need.

Bacon Quilt-along: Adding the Background

To view the main Bacon Quilt-along post and find links to all of the steps, click here.

 Once you have sewn together your bacon strips, you need to add background fabric to the ends.
Cut a width of your background fabric 14" wide. Trim off the selvages and barely trim off the fold, giving you two pieces about 14" by 21-ish" inches. Using your dresden ruler for the angle and your long straight ruler in the method described in the previous post, cut them into two pieces. The top of my smaller piece, pictured on the right, measured 6". If you want yours a little different go with it!

Next sew one short piece to one end of one bacon, and a long piece to the other. Make sure that when you lay it out the angles add up to make it "straight."

When you flip the background piece down to line up the edge, it will look like this. Be sure to pin as you've got bias edges. Stitch and press.

 Do the other end the same way. This is my short end.

Repeat on the other strip of bacon. Check to make sure you have the bacon strips facing the way you want them to go and so that the ends will be offset from each other as seen in the finished quilt.

Once you have sewn the background onto the ends you need to trim the long edges of your bacon strips. Line up your ruler with the innermost edges of your waves and cut off the extra. Go all the way down both sides of both pieces of bacon until both are straight.

Another example of where you will line up your ruler:

Now it's time to cut the remainder of the background pieces. Lay out both of your bacon strips and measure how long they are. Hopefully they are the same. Mine measured 86.25", yours may be a little different.

You will need three more background pieces, and they can all be cut from one width of fabric the same length that you measured your bacon. Carefully fold the length of the fabric a few times so that it is shorter than your ruler. Cut one pieces 6.5"wide, one piece 4.5" wide, and the other piece 24" wide.

Arrange pieces as follows:
24" piece, bacon #1, 4.5" piece, bacon #2, 6.5" piece. The edges of the bacon are full of bias edges so carefully pin everything.

We're almost done! Next week we'll do letters, I'll talk about how I quilted mine, and I'll give you instructions for bias bacon binding if you're interested.

Anyone want to do a linky? Or just share on Instagram with the tag #baconalong? I'd really love to see yours!

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Bacon Quilt-along: Turning Your Bacon from Straight to Wavy

To view the main Bacon Quilt-along post and find links to all of the steps, click here.

I need to apologize for falling off the face of the earth over here. I had a couple of crazy weeks quilting for Quilt Market, and between that and not knowing if anyone was actually following along, I was considering cancelling. A couple of days ago I got a comment from someone letting me know she was awaiting the next post as she is making a bacon quilt for her husband, so here we go! I won't be following a specific schedule right now, but I'm just planning to post the next step every couple of days until it's all there, then you can follow along at your own pace.

At this point you should have sewn two pairs of identical strip sets for each strip of bacon, with the seams pressed in opposite directions as shown below. Each pair will be different, but each strip set in each pair will match. I hope that makes sense.

To prepare to cut, layer one pair of strip sets on top of each other, both FACE UP. This is important. Wiggle them around until the seams nest together for the full width of fabric. Make sure that the bottom left corners match up pretty closely, as this is where you will start cutting.

The first piece you will cut will be the shape of the EZ Dresden ruler. another 18 degree wedge ruler should work fine. Line up the narrowest end of the wedge on with the top of the fabric on the left side of your strip set. The EZ Dresden ruler is not nearly long enough to reach across the fabric so you will need to use another long ruler. Line up a long ruler even with the side of the dresden ruler. Make sure that the lower end of the long ruler is as close to the end as you can make it without hanging over.

Make sure the lines on the dresden ruler are parallel with the seams in your fabric.

Carefully remove the dresden ruler and cut.

Replace the dresden ruler in the same spot and align the long ruler with the right side of it to cut the other edge of the wedge. I found it easiest to walk around the table I was cutting on because I am not comfortable cutting left-handed. If you can use both hands well you will likely do just fine. After cutting the second side of the wedge, you will cut a parallelogram 3 1/4" wide. Next you will cut another wedge, this time lining up the narrow end on the bottom of the fabric. Use the long ruler to cut the full width of the fabric as previously described.

Continue cutting, alternating upward wedge, parallelogram, downward wedge, parallelogram across the full width of fabric. You should end up with three of each piece by the time you get to the end, for twelve total pieces cut.

Now the fun part. Although I've made five quilts now with this method, it's tricky to explain it, so I decided to make a video. I made one while I was making my bacon quilt, but unfortunately it was accidentally deleted and could not be recovered. So I've made another video using another set of strips in different colors. The concept and method is the same even.

View the video on YouTube HERE

 Once you have cut and rearranged your shapes, it is time to sew them together. When you look at all those waves next to each other, you may wonder, "HOW AM I GOING TO SEW THESE WEIRD SHAPES TOGETHER?!?" Have no fear! When you flip one piece on top of the one next to it, because of the opposing angles, the seams match up PERFECTLY. If you have pressed your seams in different directions they will also nest, so you can sew it all together without pinning! Remember the one seam in the middle that will not nest--I recommend pinning that one.

After sewing all of your pieces together, press all seams one direction, it doesn't matter what you choose. Repeat the whole process with your second bacon strip, and you've got two wavy strips of BACON!

Today's post goes over the most confusing part of this whole quilt. If I explained anything inadequately, PLEASE let me know so I can address the issue.

Remember if you're quilting along, please tag your Instagram photos with #baconalong so we can all follow along! You can also tag me @thequiltingmill.

I'll try to get the next post up tonight or tomorrow, which will involve straightening the sides of your bacon and adding your background fabric for the whole quilt. I'll be attending Sewtopia this weekend so the next post after that will likely be on Monday, November 10th.