Have you ever wondered what "quilt as you go" was?  Or how to do it?  You are in luck!  I have a great tutorial brought to you today by the lovely Leanne of she can quilt and myself!  We are guest posting today over at Lily's Quilts, click here to check out her awesome blog, full of tutorials and all sorts of goodies!

The photos below are mine, but all of the wording is Leanne (which is really the hard part, to me anyway!)  Enjoy the tutorial:

Today Leanne from she can quilt and Marci from Marci Girl Designs are blogging together as a guest post on Lily's Quilts.

To us, one of the scariest parts of a QAYG approach to quilt construction is how to join all those blocks without making a HOT MESS. Would the quilt have lumpy seams? Would the batting wad up into bumps?

One method is to leave the off the backing while you quilt the front and batting together. Then you sew together the front/batting blocks and add the backing at the end. This allows you to have a continuous backing piece but the quilting from the front will not show on it. Penny at sewtakeahike has a tutorial for this method here.

Some methods use strips applied with, or without, additional batting between the QAYG blocks. The strips can be wide or skinny and add an interesting design element to the quilt. Marianne at The Quilting Edge has tutorials here and here. Sew We Quilt @ Stash Manicure has a tutorial here. Monica at the Happy Zombie has a tutorial here.

Another interesting approach is to bring the backing fabric to the front between the QAYG blocks and use it as a sashing. There is a video by Penny Halgren showing this method here. This tutorial from Mary Ann at Rocknquilts, explains how to join the batting with an iron-on tape specially designed for batting. This idea is intriguing, but we are not certain that it would work easily in a tight spot and it requires you to purchase the special iron-on tape.

Marci and I wanted a slightly different result. We wanted:

• a clean join on the front seam without adding any kind of design element to the front or the back of the quilt,
• the batting securely joined so it would not shift into a lump,
• as little hand sewing as possible,
• no bulky seam from sewing the front and the batting together,
• the quilting to show on the back of the quilt.

So we got into a discussion, exchanged ideas and made some impossible suggestions. That puzzle led us to think harder and come up with the method we are sharing here. Although we are both sure others have solved this problem in the same way, it was not something we had read or heard about before. We both made a small sample quilt to test this approach and we washed and dried the samples. So far, so good.

Here is our approach:

Quilt your blocks with the backing fabric in place. Make sure your back fabric and batting are larger than the front block. This gives you something to hang onto while you quilt and the extra for the joining of the blocks later. Leave about 1 inch unquilted at the edges of the front fabric.

Align the two blocks and place them right sides together. Fold and pin the batting and backing fabric out of the way. If your fronts are out of line, trim them. Stitch your front fabric, right sides together with a 1/4 inch seam.

Press open the front seam. Be careful to use a heat setting on your iron suitable for your batting.

With the back of the blocks facing you, lay the piece flat and pin back the backing fabric. Carefully trim the batting with scissors so that when it is lying flat both sides of the batting touch but do not overlap. Perfection is not required here, batting is forgiving.

Fold the blocks, right sides together. Push the seamed front fabrics into the fold and pin them out of the way. Pin the batting together.

Sew the batting together using a blanket stitch ( _l_l_l_l_ ) or a short zig zag ( vvvvvv ). Stitch slowly so that the needle goes into the two pieces of batting on one side and goes over the edge of the batting into nothing on the other side.

When you are done, open the seam and smooth the batting or give it a very gentle tug to flatten it out. The idea is similar to a flatlock that you can do with a serger. You may want to test this out on some scrap pieces of batting to get the best size of stitch to achieve this with your sewing machine.

The goal is to secure the pieces of batting together without creating an overlap or lumpy seam.

The last step matches some of the tutorials mentioned earlier. Trim the backing fabric if needed so that the pieces overlap about 1/2 inch when smoothed out. On one side, fold and iron under 1/4 inch of backing fabric. You may want to hang one side over the ironing board to make this easier. Then place the back fabric with the turned-under side on top, smooth, pin and hand sew it in place. The photo below shows this sample after it was finished, washed and dried.

Repeat for all your blocks, horizontally row by row and then vertically row by row.

We are going to use this method on our huge Dresden blocks from Lily's Quilts QAL. If you decide to give this a try, let us know how it works out.

Best,

Leanne and Marci

Thanks so much to Lynne for having us today!  A huge Thanks to Leanne for all the hard work!  I have so enjoyed working with you on this three country collaboration! It is amazing to me that a gal from Louisiana, Britain and Canada can work together (without ever having met) to come up with something so useful!  Thanks ladies, it has been fun!

Why a Semi-Tutorial you ask?  What does it mean?  Basically, I am going to walk through what I did to create this item, but I don't have step by step photos, so to me that makes it a semi-tutorial!

I wanted the mother to be to have a corsage, but wasn't sure real flowers was the route I wanted to take, so after much deliberation I decided to make her corsage.  At first I thought about faux flowers, but thought that it wouldn't create the look I wanted, then it dawned on me...fabric, my medium of choice!  In the end, I thought it turned out pretty darn cute, and the mother to be can keep her corsage forever!  Here is how I created this single flower corsage:

Fabric Flower Corsage Tutorial

Supplies: 7 (2" x 2") Scraps of Fabric, Assorted Ribbon (Various Sizes and Colors), 2 Scrap Pieces of Felt, 1 (3/4") Fabric Covered Button, Card Stock, Scrap of Cardboard, Metal Pin Back

Tools: Hot Glue Gun, Sewing Needle and Thread, Sewing Machine, Fabric Covered Button Tool, Scissors, Pinking Shears, Fray Check, Elmers Glue, Computer and Printer

Instructions: I used a book that had instructions on how to make a Kanzashi Flower, and honestly the instructions were not very good at all and I struggled (Big Time.)  The good news is, I have found an online tutorial that is GREAT!  Just make the petals smaller using the 2" x 2" fabric scraps and make only six petals.  I didn't use starch either, didn't feel like I needed it, and hold off on attaching the fabric covered button for now.  OK, here is the step-by-step:

1.  Go to Bitty Bits and Pieces for directions on how to make the fabric flower itself.  This tutorial is great!  Use six (2" x 2") fabric scraps, either all one color, or a matching set of scraps.
2.  Make the fabric covered button with the last fabric scrap, I used a piece of fabric that had an owl image, and just centered it on the button.  Set aside for later.
3.  Cut two or three types and colors of ribbon into 2" and 2.5" pieces. Neatly cut one of the ends at either an angle or a "V" shape.  Using a tiny amount of fray check, seal the neatly cut edges of the ribbon.  Set aside to dry.  I used 6 pieces of 1/2" white ribbon that was 2.25" in length and cut in a "V", and around 12 pieces of 1/8" blue ribbon in 2" lengths cut at an angle.  I also used 6 short 1/2" lengths of the same blue ribbon around the center button.
4.  Cut a 6" - 7" piece of ribbon, I used a 1/4" blue ribbon.  The length of this piece can vary depending on how low you want the saying underneath to hang.  Play with the length to get it just right for your corsage.
5.  Using your computer and printer, create a simple saying (It's A Boy, It's A Girl, or Congratulations) and print it on card stock, then trim it to a rectangle around 2" x 3". I printed the text in blue, and then put a light blue box around it, then when I trimmed the card stock, I left a slight white border around the blue box.
6.  Using the cut out card stock as a template, take a piece of felt (in my case blue) and using pinking shears, cut around the felt to have a border all around the card stock, the felt ended up being roughly 2.5" x 3.5".
7.  Cut a 2" circle out of the scrap of Cardboard.
8.  Take the 6" - 7" piece of ribbon, and fold it in half into a upside down "V".  Using Elmers glue, carefully glue the loose ends to the backside of the printed card stock.  Let dry.  Once dry take the card stock and felt and place the felt on the backside (creating of sandwich of felt, glued ribbon, then printed card stock) and using a sewing machine carefully sewing around the card stock, roughly 1/4" from the edge, this will hold all the layers together.
9.  Time for Final Assembly!  Preheat the glue gun.  Carefully glue the longer ribbon strips (unfinished edges in the center) to the back side of the fabric flower.  Glue the little strips (unfinished edges in the center) to the front of the flower and then hot glue the fabric covered button into the very center, covering up all unfinished edges and hot glue. Flip the flower over to the backside and carefully hot glue the 2" piece of cardboard in the center of the flower, covering up all unfinished edges and hot glue.  Hot glue the pin back to the top of the cardboard circle, and hot glue the top point of the "V" (of the felt, ribbon, card stock sandwich) to the bottom of the cardboard circle.
10.  Almost Done!  Carefully cut another scrap of felt (2.5" circle) this piece is to cover the cardboard and any showing hot glue.  Once you have the size right, because you don't want the felt to show on the front, cut a slit that the pin back can be pushed through, and using Elmers glue, glue the felt to the cardboard, pushing the metal pin back through the felt, so that the mother to be, can attach it to her clothing. 
You are now finished and ready to give this lovely corsage to the Mother to be!