Hi everyone!
I am finally coming around to getting this tutorial done.
So here goes nothing.
Just so you all know, I am self taught.
There is probably a better way to do this, but this is how I did it.
NOTE: If you don't have a GO! Cutter, you can still make this. You need to make yourself a triangle that is 5 inches wide on the bottom, and 6 inches tall. That is including the seam allowance.
First cut out 12 green triangles, 9 red triangles and 3 white triangles,
using your GO! isosceles triangle die.
I used a mix of different greens to make the trees. You can also make your Santa's scrappy.
The next thing I did was cut a 1/4 inch off the tip as shown below. This will help you line up your triangles when you sew them together. Trust me!!! You will need to do this if you want to be even close to getting your seams right.
Okay, now you will sew two of your triangles together. I'm going to use the Santa block for my example. I line the white block over the red block using that little cut off tip as a guide to where to place my white triangle.
Now sew that seam together.
Note: all seam allowances are 1/4 inch
Once you have sewn the seam, iron your seam towards the red fabric.
Now place the second red triangle in the position it's going to be when it's done, just to make sure you are sewing it the right way.
Now flip that red piece and line it up to the white triangle using your cut off tip as a guide. See it at the top of the photo how the white tip is showing. That's how you know that your piece is lined up correctly. Now sew this together.
Now iron your seam toward the red again. See picture above.
Now you will place your 3rd red triangle over top of the white, and sew the top seam.
Now again, sew the seam towards the red. You have the block completed.
You will use the same method to make the tree blocks. Make three tree blocks and three Santa blocks.
Line up the tree block and Santa block as shown above.
You will layer the Santa block over the tree block to join the seams.
Now, this is really important.
You want to match up the two points on the centre of the block as close as possible.
Pin the centre together.
I also added pins to the top of the seam and bottom. Time to sew the seams together.
I'm using a 1/4 inch foot. In the photo above, you can see that the red block is not quite lined up with the green one on the bottom. I'm fudging the seam to make it line up. I want the needle to go through the point in the middle of the seam without cutting it off.
In the photo above you can see my stitching line. It goes through the point of my white block just where the other two seams meet.
See how nice it looks on the front, once it's ironed. No one can tell that I fudged the seam. LOL!!!
You want to sew the next tree block to the Santa block using the same method of fudging the seam. LOL!!! Look at how nice those seams meet at the front. Who knew!!!
Continue to add the rest of the Santa blocks and tree block until you have them all sewn together.
Trace the face template to fusible web paper and cut all the pieces out of the fusible web, leaving 1/8 of an inch around all the pieces of fusible web.
Iron the fusible web to the back side of the scraps of fabric you have chosen for the face.
Cut out all your pieces following the lines and start placing them on the Santa's to prepare for fusing.
Once it looks the way you like fuse the faces to the Santa's.
Once you have all the faces fused, cut 2 1/2 inch strips to add the border.
You will want to sew the border pieces on the ends first. This will make it easier to get the angle right. Leave enough fabric on the top sew that it can be trimmed at the proper angle.
Once you have ironed the seam of your sewn border piece. You can just use your ruler to trim the excess fabric at the proper angle.
Once you have both end border pieces sewn in placea and trimmed. You can sew you top and bottom borders.
Edit: I also forgot to mention about the rim of Santa's hat. The template is with the face template. Just use fusible web to add it above the Santa's face, once the borders are on. As it hangs over just a tad.
Now, your top is done.
Now, you can make a quilt sandwich, quilt your little runner and put the binding on.
Have fun with the quilting. I added lots of swirly quilting in Santa's beard and to Santa's hat trim. I think I might even add more quitling in the trees yet. Maybe even some tree ornaments. That would be cute too.
Well, I hope you understand my tutorial. Don't worry if you seams aren't perfect. It's good to challenge yourself to a little project that's a bit more difficult. Just do your best, and it will all work out. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. I will try to answer your question the best I can.
Hugs
Ariane
