How do you feel about Y-Seams? Does the mention of Y-Seams have you quaking in your boots and heading for the hills? Well I'm here to take away the fear and stigma of the dreaded Y-Seam and help you build some serious skills.
Most of you know me pretty well by now, and you know that I'm a total sucker for short-cuts and the path-of-least-resistance in quilting. So you might be surprised to know that I actually really love machine-piecing Y-seams! (Aka: Inset-seams.) I’m here to tell you, Y-Seams have been given a bad rap and are not as scary, or as difficult, as they’re sometimes made out to be.
The skilled use of a good Y-seam will enable you to create some awesome quilt variations and designs. Did you know it's really not that tricky to machine-piece a patchwork hexagon quilt?
One benefit is better fabric placement. For example, instead of piecing half-hexagons where the fabric pattern is cut in half and has a seam running down the middle, a pieced hexagon can really show off a great fabric design element or fussy cut. Here's an example of another machine-pieced hexagon quilt I made a few years ago and the fussy-cut hexies with the cute Sarah Jane novelty prints are still some of my favorites!
So today, the Mighty Lucky Quilting club is releasing my September challenge: Working with Y-seams. This is different than a pattern for a specific quilt. It's technique-based "workshop" teaching three progressing levels of working with Y-Seams. (I've previously only ever taught this material in person at QuiltCon and the American Quilting retreat.)
In this challenge I'll share the technique for machine-piecing patchwork hexagons. Once you know the basic steps, it's really quite simple. (And I've even got some good-old time-saving tips and tricks for you!)
From there we'll build on that skill and learn how to machine-piece building-blocks.
Our final project will be walking through the steps for machine-piecing a six-pointed star with 60-degree diamonds.
Once again, I'm teaching skills, not a specific pattern, but you'll learn the techniques to add to your quilting skills repertoire. And, like the previous months of the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club, you can experiment and challenge yourselves with your new skills and implement them creatively in your sewing.
To order the September Y-Seams challenge, visit the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club and scroll down to the bottom of the page where you can order the downloadable PDF for only $5.00. While you're there read more about the creative mission of the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club where you can get a new challenge, from a new coach, each month.
I've been going through some of the past months and really learning new skills in areas where I previously had none in topics such as Reverse Applique (Dan Rouse, July), Indigo Dying! (with Kim Eichler-Messmer in June), or Block Printing for Quilters (with Krista Fleckenstein in April.)
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