Beginner's Guide To Quilting - UK (2020-04)

54 Beginner’s Guide to Quilting

Patchwork Made Easy

Don’t cut the thread, but instead lift your

machine’s presser foot, then position the

next two pieces to be sewn on the

machine, lower the foot and continue.

Continue sewing pairs, then adding

another, and another, until you have a

whole string of sewn pairs. Now simply cut

the units apart and they’re ready for you to

press the seams and start piecing the pairs

together to form blocks or rows.

You can chain piece many different

shapes in this way, not just squares and

rectangles, but we’ve used squares in this

step-by-step guide to get you started.

Cut a batch of fabric squares, then group

them into pairs. Place the first pair on your

sewing machine and sew them together,

leaving a seam along one side.

1

3

2

4

O

ften in patchwork, you’ll
come across a project where
you have a lot of identical
shapes that you need to join up – if
you’re making a basic squares
patchwork piece, for example, like
the one in our beginner’s placemat
project on page 42. Piecing them all

together one at a time on your

sewing machine can take time, but

there is a way to do it more quickly!

Chain piecing is a nifty method that

will speed up your piecing in no time,

and it’s really simple too. With chain

piecing, you pair up shapes and then feed

them through your machine one pair at a

time, without cutting the thread in

between. Once you’ve stitched up a full

chain, you just snip away the thread

between each pair and ta da! You’ve

whipped up a whole batch of pieced pairs

without having to fiddle around cutting

your thread each time. How’s that for a

cunning trick?

TRY THIS SPEEDY TECHNIQUE TO SAVE

TIME WHEN MACHINE-SEWING SHAPES

Y4 ou can chain

piece many shapes

3 Now cut the units apart

Chain piecing