Streak of Lightning: A Totally Tubular Tutorial

 

 

















My quilt guild recently featured quilter Rita Hutchens and her 'Totally Tubular' style of quilting. But before we listened to her speak and saw all of her amazing quilts, we had a special charity quilting day where we used the simplest of techniques to tubularly cut and piece a baby quilt using a simple 'streak of lightning' pattern,  that was cut and sewn in a tubular way.

Being spatially dyslexic, I wasn't sure I'd follow the instructions but after half a dozen other quilters beat me to each new step and goofed, I learned from their mistakes and it was only at the very end that I questioned myself and had an onslaught of helper rush over to aid and abet my quilting.

It ended up being so much fun, that I went on to make a second one at home, this time, remembering the tricks that worked correctly and with no problems at all! There they are, my simple two above, already finished and donated to good causes!

For those of you not familiar with tubular piecing or with Rita Hutchens, I thought I would share a bit about her and her designs, first.

Rita Hutchens has been creating her tubular style of quilt design since about 1980. She is the author of Totally Tubular Quilts, which outlines her strip piecing methods. Basically, Rita's method involves creating strip sets which are sewn into tubes, then cross-cut to create long rows of either squares or triangles of any size or angle.  Take a look at some of her creations, they are amazing!








Diamond Tubello, 14 x 22"
 

 

Mirror Image Study, 17 x 24"

Ziggity Doo Dah, 37 x 49"

 

For more information, also see Rita Hutchens' videos at YouTube.

A Quick and Easy Tutorial for easy 'Streak of Lightning" quilts, done with tube piecing technique:

While my own 'Streak of Lightning" pattern (shown in this post) is very simple, it is still related to Rita's own tubular piecing technique and unlike most other Bargello methods, there is no waste with this method. 

It was easier than I thought it would be, and really went quickly once I figured out the patterning and snipping!



                          Streak of Lightning Photo Tutorial

by Michele Bilyeu 

www.with-heart-and-hands.com  

 

Needed to make a 42" quilt:

Quilt Top: 

Eight 4 1/2" strips-2 each of 4 different fabrics

Four 1 1/2" strips...inner border

Four 4 1/2"strips..outer border

Backing Fabric: 47" x 47"


Instructions:

Cut the strips for top as described above!  Then......



1. Arrange strips in order of your fabric choices....1 to 4, then repeat. 1234..... then 1234..... for a total of eight strips.

 
2. Sew strips, in order, together from selvedge to selvedge. Then trim top edge, as shown below.

3. Press first seam up, then down and so on, alternating seam pressing direction. I'm showing the top pressing, in the photo, of course! I'm showing the top, here, but do the other' seam' side, first of course!

3. Sew top edge of pieced strips to bottom edge of pieced strips, creating a tube.




 



 



4. Lay tube out, carefully lining up all of your seams. You must be sure it is straight, as you will be cutting through multiple seam layers. 




 








 
5. Cut eight 4 1/2" strips. These will be actually creating your blocks!



 






6. Now..believe it or not, use a seam ripper (we actually used a new pair of batter powered 'trimmers' or 'groomer's but.... affectionately known as 'nose hair clippers, to zip through our seams in record time!








 


7.  Moving down the rows, remove the seam between block 1 and block 2 on the second strip. Then remove the seam between block 2 and 3 on the next set..and so on.


You are simply using the streak of lightning diagonal pattern to remove the little seams to create your larger pattern!





 8.    You should now have 8 strip sets, each 8 blocks long.

If laid out correctly, in order of the fabrics, it will make a diagonal design. Check the patterning, row by row, as above.

Now, again...double check each diagonal row to make sure you maintain the patterning...before you stitch the rows together!!! 

Any irregularity is because you goofed in your previous cutting. Check the diagonal pattern, and clip and reposition to correct yourself if you goofed ;)






9. Press again and finish your quilt, as usual!

To finish your quilt:

 
 
Add strips for inner border, 

(measurements suggested above in list of strips)







 

Add strips for outer border

(measurements suggested above in list of strips)

 

Pin batting between quilt top and backing fabric,  quilt and bind your quilt as usual!

Once you figure out just how truly easy this technique is, you can create multiple little 'Streak of Lightning' quilts using this tubular method, very quickly and efficiently!

Have fun!




Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Snippets and Threadtales:Yes, I'm Certifiable!

Have you been wondering about me? Wonder no more...I am fully certifiable, now!  Not quite sure what I am certified for..but let's just say I spend far more time in health care facilities than I do at home!

They may not have wrapped me in a white jacket yet, but I'm well on my way! Life is a challenge and that's all there is to it..but we still get to choose how we react to it, and what we do or do not choose to do with our lives.

So, yes...lots and lots of quilt therapy and the updating of all four of my active blogs., the very best I can. I also moderate a Caring Bridge site for updating close family and friends on my brother and sister-in-law and I still visit my MIL, Dorothy, who is now in hospice in end stage of advanced bone cancer.

Considering we live outside of all service areas for Internet service and don't have satellite anything, I'm lucky to get two bars out of five with my plug-in broadband internet service. Some days it's on par with the slowness of dial-up and someone flipped my dial to the wrong location!

But yes, I still blog, still update tons of photos to all of my blogs and yes...I QUILT!

Here is a worn out me, sewing with my group and here are some of the fun things I have made to donate to wonderful causes, lately:

My totally tubular streak of lightning quilts...tutorial coming soon to this blog, by me and near you!!!!

and four little leftover snippets and threadtales potholders for donation. The quilts go to the preemie ward of the Salem Hospital, the potholders are sold by my Mid-Valley Quilt Guild to raise money for other charitable causes.

And to showcase, the quilt, below......I just created a whole blog post full of links to free.....

Disappearing 9 Patch, 16 Patch and Twist/Turn Variations...so check out my blog post about them

on one of my other blogs...Free Quilt Patterns 

Free quilt patterns are always available at this site...check my sidebar, right, for tons of links to thousands and thousands of links I've saved since 2006!

!
The Disappearing, or Fractured Nine Patch quilt has been finished and previously donated to charity.
Easy to make, and so much fun..and there are SO many variations...link above!!!

I made 'Breast Pockets' for Melanie Testa's projects to create awareness for those who choose not to reconstruct after mastectomies. 



Melanie is a wonderful free spirit with a rock star personality so hence the artsy and grungy grafitti look of some...as well as my usual sweet love approach forthree others. Melanie is absolutely a '10" and a 'Star' as well as a "Rock Star" for all she does to continue to educate us about women's post cancer/post mastectomy choices.

I still take daily care of Matilda, Penelope, Georgette and Gig......our chickens.  Taking care of chickens involves feeding and watering, collecting eggs, and letting them out in the morning and locking them up in their coop at night.

But in our own free spirited, Gigi's case...it also involves trying to get her to come down from trees!  My super zoom makes her super fuzzy with my small Nikon but there she is!  And yes, some chickens can actually fly..over fences, up into trees, and out of site in a single flight!

Kermit, our lone remaining cat, since the oh so very sad losses of my beloved Keira and Willow, has turned back to her true nature of only wanting to be outside.

But she and the chickens are best of friends. Well, except for Georgette, our alpha hen who literally chases Kermit across the back deck as fast as she possibly can! It's pretty hilarious and no beaking or biting is involved but still..poor Kermit!


She's a good natured gal and loves to hang with the best of them, no matter what!  Another little quilt that was made from cast off scraps from a guild member and is now a soft flannel baby quilt. I do so love my freecycle tables!

And I already showed you my Oceanside Museum of Art Prayer Flags

 

And then of course, my beloved Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) quilts..these two were donated for October and November as part of my   Quilt of the Month *QAM* promise.

My AAQI Quilting: Registered and For Sale Soon! 'Miss November':               12,614 - Imperfectly Perfect in Every Way! And last month's 'Miss October'
Yep, always busy...but still having fun! And did you wonder about the November AAQI Celebrity Quilt Auction??? Check out the Celebrity Quilt Auction: Final Bids.....   AMAZ.....ING!!!! Thank you Celebrity Quilters from all of us who support this wonderful cause!   And PS...Miracles continue! My brother is getting better, week by week, and day by day!!! And his wife, my SIL, Becky, is hanging in there awaiting a kidney transplant.      They just  moved Doug into a 'Respite Apartment' in the care facility. I call it the "Presidetial Suite". He says "I don't know what I did to deserve this room!" And I told him, they just discovered your no cap insurance plan." Yep, how it works with insurance!  He is probably over 5 million by now as my friend's son hit 1 million in a month. Yes, we need even more insurance reform and more equal coverage for all!  This may be very, very nice, but it does not make it fair...not even in our eyes, when he gets the room!

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Oceanside Museum of Art: My Prayer Flags

  

Three of my prayer flags are flying high at the Oceanside Museum of Art in Oceanside, California. The CALL TO ARTISTS  of the OMA PRAYER FLAG PROJECT created a display of prayer flags that will greet all visitors as they enter the gallery from  October 14 through December 31, 2012.

Fiber artists were invited to design a unique flag made of fabric and other materials that reflects their current and future hopes and dreams. I have been flying Tibetan prayer flags since the 1980's and creating my own for the past 10 years.

Most of them have been placed outside to share my prayers through the journey of the winds, the rain, and the snow from my island home in Alaska to my current one in Oregon. Please open each prayer flag to see them close-up and to view my original poetry/prayer blessings on the backs.

 With prayers endlessly needed for my immediate family..my mother in her 8th year of Advanced Alzheimers' being cared for, at different times, by all 5 of her children in our childhood home in Douglas (Island) Alaska, for my almost 97 year old mother-in-law, now in hospice with advanced bone cancer, for my brother who survived 2 1/2 months in a coma as I have followed him through 3 states and 5 hospitals for the past 5 months, to his wife, my SIL who is in end stage kidney failure and needing a rare form of an O+ kidney transplant...well,  I am endlessly praying and endlessly hanging up even the simplest strips of fabric outside on my prayer arch for my personal causes.

But my prayers are always for a larger and greater purpose than my individual ones, so as I designed my three submissions for this project, I wanted themes that represented the unheard voices of the many. Using my own painted and stamped fabrics, and using some favorite quotes for the front of my flags, I added my own prayers in poetic form to the labels on the back to tie in with the quotations on each of the fronts..

It is a blessing to know that they were flying above the museum visitors when the exhibit opened on October 14,  and that they were in use, and manifesting good will during all of the hard and challenging days of Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy, this past week.

My thoughts and prayers go out from West to East, as I share my thoughts and prayers with all of you.

Other recent and associated links:

Prayers Flags from Mungpoo 

 Praying for a Miracle 

Oceanside Museum of Art  

The Prayer Flag Project

  

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!