Trip Around the World, Nestling Seams Tutorial Tweak

Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville has already created a great tutorial for a scrappy TATW, called "Scrappy Trips", so I will credit her but not steal from her. This post contains the various ways I deviated from her instructions, and in so doing managed to make all the seams on all the blocks nestle with each other, no matter which direction a block was turned.

It was at this step

that I discovered two key points to making nestling seams. 

Once my strips were sewn together and ready for ironing, I designated one edge as The Top. The pink doxie fabric in this panel is The Top.

It was arbitrary and would make no difference to the ultimate placement of the block in the final top layout, but it was critical in the construction of each block.

For this project, the first seam would be ironed UP, onto the strip that was designated The Top, and the others ironed accordingly.

All the panels in this project were ironed in this way: the first/top seam was ironed UP. I've also completed projects in which the first/top seam was ironed down (and the rest ironed accordingly) on all the panels in the project. As long as the ironing is consistent, the rest falls into place.

Next I switched the order of a couple of Bonnie's steps. Instead of sewing the panel into a tube right away, I squared one end (a longer-than-12" ruler is very handy for this and the next step)

then while everything was nicely laid out and squared up, cut the first subsection. This is the other key to constructing every block the same so all blocks nestle.

That gets put up on the mini design wall at my cutting station (with The Top clipped to help my memory)

and then the remaining panel is sewn into a tube.

I've learned that it's easier to lay the tube out again (for the subcuts) if this seam is not ironed in its designated direction. It makes little difference in the long run, but saves a lot of unnecessary iron time if you just leave this seam alone for now.

Five subcuts later

and it's on to my final deviation.

I found the part about separating these tubes very confusing the first time I made this pattern, and I ended up resewing several times because I had picked out the wrong seam. So I've gone very simple, very repetitive and have never had trouble keeping things straight since.

I bring down strip 1 from the design wall, then arrange the 5 tubes so they exactly mimic the bottom 3 squares of strip 1.

From this point on, I'm handling only one seam, the second seam from the bottom of each tube:

Starting from the end, I pick up the tube by that seam and place that seam at the bottom:

I do that five times.

Then, starting from the end again, I pick up the second seam from the bottom

and place that seam at the bottom four times.

This is repeated three

two

then one more time.

You can see the diagonals forming, and that's a Good Thing.

Now it's simply a process of unsewing the bottom seam of each of these tubes (showcased by the pins)

and opening up the strips. I like to work with the fabrics face down so I can keep close track of those seams. You're obviously free to place things whichever way you're most comfortable.

It's easy to keep things straight should you drop a strip. An upside-down strip will break the diagonal pattern established,

but a correctly placed strip will fit right in.

All tubes opened and ready to sew together.

Obviously, these strips nestle with all the others within this block, but they'll also nestle with every block ironed the same way, no matter what direction the blocks are turned.

The problem with making the tube first, cutting 6 subsections, then choosing a random first seam to unsew (as described in most methods) is that you've made it very difficult to make sure the blocks have all been constructed the same. Sometimes the first strip will have the top block with the seam ironed away from it. Sometimes the first strip will have the top block with the seam ironed onto it. That makes a difference! By establishing the first strip immediately, this random chance of seam direction has been eliminated.

I hope this helps you, or at least gives you some different things to try when you make your own blocks.