The Wedding Ring tutorial

.Hello everyone, hope you had a fabulous weekend. I finished my sewing gifts for the kids, yah! Will post pictures of them soon. But for today, I thought I'd walk you thru a wedding ring block, to show it is't not so scary as you might think. There are a lot of little pieces that have to be cut out using templates, but if you go slow and steady, they come together fairly well.

 I got all my templates from the Benni Harper's book "Quilt Album". She makes a beautiful Wedding ring quilt, with lone stars on it. Here is the quilt I made from this book (this picture doesn't have the border on it).

Here are the pieces you will need for one block.

A block : 16 'A' pieces (you can use as many different colors as you like)
B block : 8 'B' pieces, 8 reversed 'B' pieces
C block: 8 'C' pieces
D block: 4 'D' pieces
E block: 1 'E' piece

First you lay out your A pieces, in the color scheme you want. Or you can do totally scrappy ones. You will need 4 A pieces sewn together for unit A. You will need 8 A units for one block.

The pieces are slightly curved on top and bottom, and are a tiny bit larger on the bottom then the top. Easy to piece together.

Next you add one B piece and one B reversed piece to either side of your A units. Making sure you put the straight side of B, to the unit A.

Easy so far, yes? :)

Now you need to add a C piece to both sides of four of the A/B units. Piece B and rB are convex curved, whereas piece C is concave curved (I think I have those right. lol).

Lay four of your pieces so that the C piece has the curved pieces in the right place. You see the pointy tip of piece C is pointing out.

Find the middle of the curve of piece C. I like to fold my piece in half, and give it a pinch. That way I have a crease that goes away easily and no marks. And the middle of piece B. After folding, open them both up and match the middle marks up. Pin it. Gently pull the edges of piece C to fit the edges of piece B. Since they are curved, they are a little stretchy. And pin! Pins are important in this block.

Sew all the C pieces to the B pieces. So you have 4 units like this.

The next step is to sew one of the A/B units (the four that doesn't have piece C sewn to it) to either side of piece D.

Again, fold piece D in half lengthwise and pinch the side so that you have your halfway mark. The halfway point of the unit is the middle seam. Pin the middle points together.

Gently pin the edges together, working your way from the middle to either end. Pins are the key to this block! Your A/B unit piece will be a little bunchy, after it's all pinned, but that's ok.

 

Sew, using a 1/4" seam. Press the seam towards block D.

Now find the middle of the other side of the D piece, and pin it to the middle of your A/B/C unit.

And again, gently pull the ends around and line up the edges. Pinning all the way. Maybe every half inch.

 

Sew 1/4" seam. and Press towards block D.

Now you have 8 units that look like this.

You will be sewing them to piece E, like this.

Find the middle of one side of E, folding and pinching. Pin your unit to it, first the middle.

Then along the edges towards the end. Your pinning will end at the seam line between pieces B and C.

It's ok that piece E is bunched, just gently pull the pieces when you are sewing, so the bunches aren't in the seam.

Start with your needle right in that seam between pieces B and C. Go forward a few stitches then take a back stitch. Sew just until the next B/C seam! Take a back stitch and stop.

Add another unit to the next side. Making sure you stop at the seam line.

So that your unit looks like this when done with the second side.

Fold the unit, matching those two C pieces. And pin it. Then sew 1/4". As this curved angle (the two C pieces) are slightly different than the rest of the unit, I find it easier to sew these pieces on in two stages.

Add remaining sides in the same way. And TA-DA, a wedding ring block.

My tips:

Use pins, lots of them. It really helps to keep your curved pieces in place. Taking the pins out as you come to them.

And sewing the units to piece E in two stages..sewing the C pieces seperately from the rest the unit really helps get that angle right.

Making a whole quilt with these blocks, you'll make a bunch of these rings, then you sew them together using more E pieces and half E pieces. Just remember to find the middle and pin, then pin out to both sides.

I hope my little tutorial is helpful to any of you who are afraid to try it due to the curves! Let me know if you don't understand something. I love to help.

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Linking up with QuiltStory and SewHappyGeek, Thanks Ladies!

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Copyright D. Lucas, 2011 This is my tutorial. You are welcome to use any of my tutorials for personal use. You are not permitted to use my pictures or my words without linking back to the original and giving me credit for them.