Bells Quilt Block
Ho ho ho! It is the first Monday in December and it is starting to be the Holiday Season. So this week, I thought I would start off with kind of a holiday pattern. This one is going to be a little bit complex because it is going to have some curves and it is going to have some applicae, so I hope you are up for the challenge.
This is Penny Halgren from QuiltBlockLibrary.com and today, I am going to show you how to sew together a block called bells. Pretty simple, four little bells, but we got some work ahead of us, so let us get started.
Before I get started on my sewing machine, what I am going to do is make the circles to go on the bells and I decided that the easiest way to do this is to make little yo-yos. A yo-yo is just simply a little circle that you make and they are pretty easy to make, but it is the most kind of a reliable way to make a circle or maybe the easiest. So the thing that I am going to do is start with the square piece of fabric and I am going to fold it in quarters. And then I am going to start in one corner and just trim a quarter circle and I just eye ball this. You can mark this if you want and then open it up. And you can see mine has kind of points on two ends, so I am just going to trim those off.
The next thing you do is just take a needle and a thread and you are just going to make some running stitches all the way around the outside of this. And the running stitches are going to be fairly close to the edge, the right edge and I tend to make them fairly short because the shorter you r stitches are, the tighter you are going to be able to make your circle. Now I am back at the beginning. I have got the stitch all the way around the outside. I am just going to turn this over and then pull my thread. And as I pull it, it is going to gather. And I just stick my finger in the center so that it kind of gets the idea that it is going to gather into a circle, and then you just kind of adjust it depending on how circular it is, how circular you want it. And then what I usually do is take a couple of stitches. This finally gathers them and close it up.
Now I have got my piece that is going to be the center of the bell and I have got my little yo-yo. And I am just going to take a dab of glue and this is just regular, office depot, tacky glue. And just put a little spot of glue on it and then I just put it down on my piece where I want to sew it down. And then I am going to take my same thread and I am just going to hand stitch the bell clapper onto the inside here using a blind stitch. So I just come up from the bottom and pull out through. I have got a knot on my thread and I just use my thumb and my fingernail to hold the yellow piece down, and then grab a little few threads from the green and some more from the yellow and then just work my way around. And when I get back to the beginning, I can just poke my needle through and make a knot on the back side.
Now that I have my little yo-yos sewn on, what I am going to do is make a stem that goes from the circle down to the outside of the bell. So I decided to use embroidery thread and again, I am just going to come up through the bottom. I am going to use a pretty simple backstitch here and I am going to take reasonably small stitches. So I will just grab a little piece of fabric ahead of where my stitch is and come back up through. And then the second stitch, I am going to where the first stitch came up or came down. And I alternate sides, I do not know if that is the right way to do it, but that is kind of what I do, so every other stitch is going to come out on the other side.
This is just great thread and it is four strands of thread, mostly because two strands of thread, double thickness, so I tight all of it together in a knot. So I will just continue on down to the end.
Once I finished doing this to all four of the inside of the bell pieces, then I am ready to just do it in the sewing machine.
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