Last Day for 40% OFF! Plus more Tips!

Hey! It's me, again! Look at all this blogging I'm doing. It's crazy sauce! ;) lol.

I just want to let you know really quick that

  

today is the last day for 40% OFF the 

My First Alphabet 6 inch pattern! 

Make sure to click on the drop down menu and select the 6 inch Alphabet option.  
(sale is for the 6 inch size only. no coupon necessary - which means for my Creative Explorer peeps, aka, if you are on my newsletter list, you just might have a coupon that you could add on to that for extra savings... if you're not on the list, you can sign up by clicking the button on the sidebar for an instant coupon! ;) Just saying.)


Anyway....

I wanted to also share my A's with you!

Aren't these pretty?! I'll be making a whole bunch of letters this weekend, so I'm glad to be starting off with good results and positive energy, which will hopefully help carry me through the rest of them... ;) (I have 82 letters for my 2 projects plus I decided to do an alphabet mini with the 6 inch letters and a pouch for my son, so that's another 26 letters plus 7. I have 3 done so far! but I'm not going to think about that. though I will think about how in all of those letters I only have 4 S's! so that's awesome! lol.) ;)

In the photo, from left to right: 6 inch letter from the new 6 inch alphabet, 3 inch letter from the original pattern, and a 2 inch letter which I shrunk down from the 3 inch pattern (I show you how to do that in this post).

As I was piecing my A's I did discover a new tip that I want to share with you as well! I'm pretty excited about this one! :)

If you know me, you know I LOVE using cutting templates when I paper piece. But cutting templates with these letters would be pretty ridiculous.

I shared one tip in my last post about cutting long strips for the letter sections. I'll tell you here how I figured out how wide to cut the strips: measure the width of the letter section, and then add 3/8 inch to each side,

width of the letter section + 3/4 inch = width to cut your strips

By letter section I mean the single line of the letter. You can see that in the A there are two different lines that come down each side of the letter, and then one small line that goes across. Find the width of one of those lines (or the height of the horizontal line).

Then cut those strips to length for the sections you are piecing. Super quick and easy!

 

Ok, that wasn't actually my tip. lol. Here's my tip:

Some sections are weird shaped and can be a little harder to figure out exactly where/how to fold your fabric to cover the entire section. Here's a super quick and easy way to get it right the first time WITHOUT needing to unpick anything!


First make sure that your fabric piece is large enough to cover the entire section PLUS 1/4" on all sides.

Lay it right side down on the BACK of the pattern template - the printed side. Align the fabric so it's aligned nicely with all the surrounding edges. Don't worry about the stitch line just yet.

Now fold the fabric to the back, or to the wrong side of the fabric, and align the fold with the stitch line, making sure not to shift the fabric (it still needs to cover all the other edges by at least a 1/4", or as in these images the seam allowance). Crease the fold.

Now flip the pattern template and fabric piece over so both are right sides up, keeping the fabric folded.

If you glue baste, draw a line of glue just to the inside of the stitch line.

With fabric still folded, align it on the stitch line so the edges cover all the edges of the section and overlap by a minimum of 1/4".

Unfold the fabric without letting it shift (this is why I like glue basting, it doesn't shift!) Then piece like normal.  Trim around the block, leaving the 1/4" seam allowance.

You'll have a little more fabric waste than you do when using cutting templates, but it's so quick and easy that it's ok! :)

While I'm sharing, here's a quick scale chart if you are starting out with the 6 inch pattern. REMEMBER, if you make the pattern smaller, you MUST adjust the seam allowances as they will be toooooo small. ;) (see this post for instructions). If you enlarge the pattern, the seam allowances will be too wide.

Alright... I'd love to stay and chat, but I have some letters to make!

Don't forget the sale!!!