I signed up for Anita Grossman Solomon's new Craftsy class called "Quick Techniques for Classic Blocks". I've taken previous classes with her, and I like her unique out-of-the box way of looking at things and her clever short-cuts. She does lots of relatively simple things, but with innovative techniques.
Anita's new class is all about these patterns she's developed called "Cutting Lines Patterns". You print off a pattern sheet, slap it over two fabric squares, sew on the marked sewing lines, then cut it apart on the marked cutting lines, and you have a block! The big plus of this is that you don't have to pre-cut any fabric pieces before you sew them together and your sewing is extremely accurate - no worrying about varying quarter-inch seams.
I was excited to try all this, so I printed off a bunch of Anita's Monkey Wrench patterns and went to town over the weekend. It was weird at first, because it felt like I was missing some major steps in the quilting process. I went right from picking out fabrics to sewing them - no cutting in between. It almost felt like I was getting away with something, and it was fun!
I sewed 42 blocks in the span of a few hours over the weekend, and now I just need to cut them all apart and play with the layout a little bit.
If you want to give this a try, Anita has made the Monkey Wrench pattern available on her blog for free. One sheet is instructions, and the other is the pattern. This way of sewing is absolutely foolproof!
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