Piecing blocks with directional fabric

Posted on by quiltedl

I’m currently working a quilt using the Duck Duck Goose pattern from Summercrafter Patterns (edited my moi!).

Here are the completed duck and goose blocksduckduckgoose. See the ducks with the yellow/white ovals? And the goose on the second row?  Those blocks involved piecing with directional fabrics. It’s not difficult to do, but it does require some advance planning on your part.

SIMPLE STEPS

  1. Decide which end is up on the fabric – this will be the top of any cut pieces.
  2. Before cutting, study the fabric and plan the direction/sequence you’ll need to cut to make certain all pieces are oriented the correct way.
  3. Make sure you turn pieces the right way when sewing. Here’s a handy diagram I made to help remember which way to turn the fabrics when making corner units or HSTs. This example shows a snowball block:

TOP OF FINISHED BLOCK
(Directional base fabrics should be turned in this direction!)

cheatsheet.jpg
The arrows indicate which way to orient the top of the fabric squares to                          maintain a one-way design after sewing.

I often sew in the evenings after a long day at school. I don’t want to think too much about what I’m sewing. This diagram in my sewing notebook helps immensely!

**Goose block cutting changes if using directional fabric for the background** 
Cut two (2) 3″ squares of each fabric for the tail feathers instead of the single square listed in the pattern directions.