Mini Friendship Braid

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I used paper piecing or flip-and-sew method of sewing to sew the friendship braid strips together. The following items are what I use when I paper piece.

Requirements
1 sheet of Foundation Paper or A4, 90/95gsm, tracing paper, a sewing machine in good working condition, a single hole throat/stitch plate is also helpful (optional) Mettler threads Silk Finish 100% Cotton thread (50/3 weight), 100% cotton fabric, 70/10 Jeans/Denim sewing machine needle, Iron and ironing board, ruler, rotary cutting board, ruler, Add-A-Quarter ruler 6” (optional), rotary cutter with straight blade, wooden press, pencil and general sewing supplies.

Equipment, fabric, photo stated friendship braid pattern, rotary cutter, seam pressed, quarter inch ruler and rotary cutting board.

Materials
66 various scraps of fabrics 1¼” x 2” for friendship braid strips
1 strip of light fabric 2” x 20” – for the hand embroidered strips A
2 strips of blue fabric for the first border and binding 1” x 42” B – C
1 strip of floral fabric for border 1¾” x 42″ D – E
13” backing
13” batting
Neutral-colour cotton threads for machine piecing, quilting and hand sewing.
Embroidery threads
Basic sewing tools and supplies appropriate to the task.

Cutting
Cut two 2” x 8” A strips light fabric
Cut two 1” x 8” B strips blue fabric
Cut two 1” x 8¼” C strips blue fabric
Cut two 1¾” x 9” D strips floral fabric for border
Cut two 1¾” x 10¾” E strips floral fabric for border

Make 1 copy of the paper-piecing Miniature friendship braiding on to Foundation Paper or tracing paper. Prepare fabric pieces and complete 3 strips of the friendship braid units referring to Machine paper-Foundation Piecing. They use Foundation Paper if you can’t find it the tracing paper works exactly the same!

Once the pieces have been sewn, press and trim the strips to 1¾” x 8”. Remove paper from the back. Press carefully again!

Note: The first time I showed a friend how to paper piece. She hated it! But now she loves it! Now every time she has to do a complicated block she wants to know if she can paper piece it! Don’t give up after the first time. If this has pricked your interest to paper piece and you want more info, go to the ADD-A-QUARTER site.

Alternate and join three friendship braid strips to two A strips. Press towards the A strips. Press gently and square the pieced centre unit off.

Trimming the seam allowance using a quarter inch ruler.
Alternate and joining the friendship braid to strip A.
Sew strip B to the centre unit.

Sew a B strip to either side of the friendship braid strips. Press towards the B strips. Sew C strips to the top and bottom and press towards C strips.

Mark the two vines onto strips A for embroidery. Embroidery the vine design using, the following embroidery stitches; lazy daisy for the flowers and leaves, stem stitch for the vine and French knots for the grapes. Press on the wrong side.

Sew D strips to opposite sides of the pieced centre, press seams towards B. Sew E strips to the top and bottom of pieced centre, press seams towards C.

Finishing
Press quilt top both sides, check for proper seam pressing and trim all loose ends.

Marking the vine for the hand embroidery.
Finished hand embroided vine.
Marking the quilting design and sandwiching the quilt using safety pins.

Mark top of quilt with a quilting design of your choice. Sandwich backing, batting and quilt top together. Quilt as desired! When quilting is complete, trim batting and backing fabric even with raw edges of quilt top.
Quilting by stitching in the ditch using a walking foot.
Quilting free motion design using a free motion foot .
Sewing the binding on.

Bind edges with 1”- wide blue fabric referring to Tutorial – Quilt Binding with Mitered Corners.

Note: If you would like to make the pink quilt you will need 84 various scrap of fabrics 1¼” x 2” and 4 extra paper piece strips for the border, for the 2 short borders add 2 more pattern pieces onto each pattern strip and for the long borders, add 7 more pattern pieces onto each pattern strip.

Lots of love
NikkiM

57 thoughts on “Mini Friendship Braid”

  2. Reblogged this on handmadebysoo and commented:
    To the lovely ladies of the U3A knitting group, here’s one of my very favourite blogs. I know you will, like me, fall in love with NikkiM’s beautiful quilting work. Thank you Karen and Barbara for hosting and setting up the group. Enjoy!

    Reply

  8. Reblogged this on To Bake or Create.. and commented:
    I thought I would share this project from a fellow crafter. The hand embroidery is beautiful and the colours and design are right down my alley! This has definitely inspired me after a difficult few weeks. I hope by passing it on it will help to inspire even more people. Let me know what you think, I am sure NikkiM will be pleased to see your comments! -Kelly x

    Reply

  10. This such a special friendship bracelet. I really love it. I would like to make one for each of my good friends for Christmas. Thanks for such a great tutorial.

    Reply

  11. I love that you gave a clear set of directions! And, I agree with others, that the embroidery adds another dimension to this–two crafts are better than one!

    Reply

  14. Nikki – You have written a great tutorial / pattern here!!! Nicely done. I want to “keep this” for future reference! 🙂 It looks like something I could do while in between BIG projects.

    Reply

  19. Not sure if I have already commented on this…..but I am very envious of your beautiful work. You must have a lot of patience. x

    Reply

  27. Pingback: The Friendship Quilt | Sonya May hem

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