Ed mouse the official How To Quilt Siamese cat is going to be 15 years old this year, later this year and so all during the year I’m doing some special things because 15 years old pre-offer a cat that’s actually keep all years. So you can see in the background I’ve earlier made a cat’s potluck for him and it’s got his little picture in the center and then a couple of weeks ago I made a block called all those fish which you know cats like fish. So I made that for him. And so today I thought I would show how to make another one of his favorite things, mice.
So this is a cat’s and mice’ quilt block and I’m going to make this in16 inch size so that I can have a picture of him once again in the center of this block. Hi! This is Penny Hallgreen from QuiltBlockLibrary.com, QuiltBlockLibrary.tv, and How-to-Quilt.com. Thanks for joining me and today I’m going to show you in addition to how to sew this block together, I’ll show you a few quick tips about printing photographs onto that work. So let’s get started.
What you’re looking at is the screen of my computer and I have a program called Photoshop that I use to work with my pictures and this is kind of how I set it up. I’ve found the picture of—and mouse that I really like. I made it a little bit more than four inches because four inches is the finished size of the patch that I’m going to put his picture in. And then I’ve put this in the corner of an 8x11 inch frame and so now, I’ll be able to print that out on a piece of pre-treated fabric. This is pre-made treasures fabric and it’s got the paper on the back so I can just slide it right through my printer. The first thing that I did though is before I print it out on the fabric, I want it to be printed out on a piece of paper and then the first time I printed it out, this is way too close to the edge. It’s not going to give me enough the seam allowance.
So I have moved the picture down so that when I put this through my printer it should come out in a good position on this fabric. This is my little all in one ink jet printer and you pretty much have to use an ink jet printer to accomplish printing on fabric. So this is shiny side up, the papers up, and the fiber just facing down. So I’m just going to slide it in into my printer and then I’m going to print the one piece. And there it is, straight from the printer. You can see that it’s got enough of an edge around it with white space so that I’ll be able to place my square ruler in the center and get up a piece out that’s got seam allowances on it.
So now we’re ready to go to the sewing machine. Most of the patterns are spread out here in the way I need to sew them. But I do have this step up here in the corner and because this is such a large block, they don’t all exactly fit on my final cord. But the first thing I’m going to do is take these pieces and sew them together. You sew the units that go into the corners. So they’re going to end up being a triangle and I’m going to go ahead and chain sew this and just place the strange-shaped-piece triangle on top and just put down the one side. These pieces are sewn together on this side so now I’ll just add this other triangle onto the other side. Now the corner pieces are finished and we’re ready to sew the block together and I’m just going to start in the center and add these triangles onto the center.
So the first thing I’ll do is sew the triangles onto each of the sides of the center square. Now the side triangles are on and I’m just going to add this on the top and the bottom. Now that these triangles are sewn onto the center square, you can see that there are little triangle tips. So I’m going to trim those at so that when I add the next set of triangles around the outside it will reduce the quilt there. So once I cut this up, then I’m going to start sewing this on. Now these two triangles are sewn on and I’m ready to add the triangles on the other two sides.
Now we’ve got two sets of triangles there and we’re back to a square shapes. We’re just square facing up and if there are any little points here that need to be trimmed, this would be the time to do it. Other than that, it’s time to add another set of triangles to make another square. Let the triangle sewn on the sides here, its time to add the ones to the top and the bottom. And now our final set of triangles that will make this once again a square, just a regular square block, not on point so just one at time. Also, the sides sewn first, these two opposite sides, and then the final two sides.
This cat’s and mice’ block is all finished and ready to hang on my wall actually. I’m going to add it to the cat’s paw and the all those fish blocks and see what wonderful quilt I can come up with for— and mouse’s 15th Birthday. This was a pretty fun block to-do, relatively easy. The thing you need to watch out for is all those triangles and by its edges and not stretching anything.
Thanks for joining me. This is Penny Hallgreen at QuiltBlockLibrary.com, QuiltBlockLibrary.tv, and HowtoQuilt.com. Until next time, peaceful piecing.
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