Tall Poppy sewalong 4
This week we’re getting into one of the poppy units. We’ll sew them in the same order as the pattern, so first up is the open poppy and I have three tips/ideas to share with you.
Trimming later
As I showed you with the leaf unit, I’m finding my open poppy unit is neater if I leave the outside trimming until the four drunkard’s path units are sewn together. If you need a reminder about this process, you can find it here.
At left, the drunkard’s paths trimmed only on the inside edges. At right, sewn together before trimming whole unit down to 7 1/2”
Appliqué your way
Both times I’ve made this quilt previously, I’ve sewn my appliqué by hand, but every time I teach the Tall Poppy quilt, I see quilters being adventurous and trying all sorts of other ways including lovely decorative stitches on the machine in contrasting thread.
So I decided to give something new a try too. This time I’m using a 12wt thread in a similar shade of green and stitching just inside the turned edge.
Don’t feel you have to use a traditional way of appliquéing – the choice is yours!
Joining to a leaf unit
To get a precise seam when sewing a leaf unit to a poppy unit, you want to sew just along the seam line of the leaf tops, and just along the seam line at the bottom of the open poppy. How to do this when you can only see one of these while sewing the units together? Theoretically, our blocks would be perfect and they would fall exactly at the quarter inch mark when we sew our next perfect quarter inch seam (yeah right!).
There are two ways to make sure your seams land in the right place. First, start with the open poppy unit facing up and sew a few small stitches into the seam at the bottom of the open poppy circle to mark the new seam line.
Next, turn the pieces over so you have the leaf unit facing up and sew your quarter inch seam, making sure to pass through the tops of each of the leaf seams as well as the stitches that mark the bottom of the open poppy circle on the other side.
Stitches sewn across the bottom of the open poppy unit circle on the other side so I can see where to sew from this side.
Alternatively, you can start with the leaf unit facing up and use Jemima’s technique to make sure you also sew through the bottom of the open poppy circle as shown below.
One last thing…
As I make each poppy block, I sew the sashing strip to the right hand side except for the last poppy on each row. This way when I’ve finished all my blocks, they’re ready to sew together without having to stop and do all the sashing.
That’s it for week four. I hope you’re making slow progress with your quilt, and, as always, get in touch if you need to ask any questions.
I’ll see you back here in a couple of weeks to make some budding poppy units.
