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The trick to curved piecing the Double Wedding Ring pattern is in the…

The trick to curved piecing the Double Wedding Ring pattern is in the…

by Christine Baker

Last month on QUILTsocial I worked through the first steps of making a Double Wedding Ring bed runner all the way from cutting the pieces to sewing curved seams using the Dreamweaver XE. This week I’m finishing it up – right to the bias binding!

The Dreamweaver XE

The Dreamweaver XE

The last thing I did last month was to make these arc sections – half of which had light colored fabrics on their ends…

Light ended arc

Light ended arc

and the other half had dark colored squares.

Dark ended arc

Dark ended arc

The next step is to sew these arc sections to the block centers – the weirdly shaped pieces shown below.

Block center

Block center

If you’re following along, you’ll need to mark the center of the edge of the block center with a pin. The center of one darkened arc is aligned with this pin.

Aligning the arc

Aligning the arc

The end of the center section is aligned with the seam between the square and the first section of the pieced arc, so that they meet ¼” in from the end of the center section. You’ll see this easier in one of the following photographs.

Aligning the pieces

Aligning the pieces

Three pins is all you need to join these two pieces together. Just make sure that there are pins at the middle and at both ends.

Three spots pinned

Three spots pinned

The curved seam is easily stitched by sewing slowly and gently pulling to straighten out the seam. Check out my post from last month to see more about sewing curved seams.

Sewing the seam

Sewing the seam

Sew up to the pin that is holding the end of the block center and arc section together.

Sew up to the pin

Sew up to the pin

Sew right off of the tapered end of the block center to complete the seam between the center and the arc. Notice how the end of the block center extends past the seam between the end square and the pieced arc. This will ensure you have enough fabric to sew the next arc to the second side of the block.

The seam ending

The seam ending

Press this seam with your iron in whichever direction it wants to go – it doesn’t really matter which direction the seams are pressed. Here’s the finished seam between the dark ended arc and the center of the double wedding ring quilt block.

The completed seam

The completed seam

This step now needs to be repeated with all of the block centers. I’ve got 12 blocks to sew for my bed runner so I’ll keep sewing with the Dreamweaver XE and tomorrow I’ll add the second side to these blocks.

This quilt is amazing when finished!!

This is part 1 of 5 in this series.

Go to part 2: Taking the fear out of piecing Double Wedding Ring blocks

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8 comments

Joan VanderPol March 14, 2021 - 6:12 pm

I was gifted a half done double wedding ring where they sewed the colorful pieces together, put the arches together with 18th-1/4 inch ( sort of) seams, and didn’t give any template or patterns for the inside of the arches or the bigger background piece. The pieces of color are larger than any patterns I have been able to match with, even after I fix the seams to be 1/4 inch.
Any ideas on how to make a pattern/template for the missing pieces?

Reply
Christine Baker March 15, 2021 - 10:39 pm

Hi Joan,
I think I would press under 1/4 inch along the sides of a few of the arches and lay them down on a paper so that the edges at the ends of the arches were right beside each other (ie make the arches look like they would in the finished quilt). Trace onto the paper along the folded edges and then add 1/4″ all around. Use these shapes to make the templates for the large background pieces and the inside of the arch. I would just make a few and try seing them together to see if they fit before making a bunch. Hopefully that would work. Hope this makes sense!
Christine

Reply
Joyce Hernandez January 21, 2021 - 8:30 pm

I’m thinking about making this quilt but before I can begin I need to know how much background fabric to buy for a queen size quilt. Can anyone help me with this?

Reply
Christine Baker January 23, 2021 - 9:13 pm

Hi Joyce,
In my March 2019 posts I talked more about how many pieces you need to cut from each shape to make different sizes of quilts. Here is the link: https://quiltsocial.com/the-anatomy-of-a-double-wedding-ring-quilt/
You can also find more info on the Accuquilt website: https://www.accuquilt.com/go-double-wedding-ring-bed-runner-pattern.html
Hope that helps!
Christine

Reply
Barb December 1, 2019 - 4:27 pm

Thank you so much for this tutorial I have been wanting to make this quilt for a very long time, I even have the templates for it but still afraid to try it but I am going to work on one this winter.

Reply
Cecilia May 3, 2019 - 8:44 am

Thank you for the great information on sewing curves. This quilt is on my bucket list, I just have to get my courage up before I attempt it.

Reply
Carla A. Canonico May 3, 2019 - 11:24 am

Go Cecilia Go! Start with a sample block.

Reply
Lori Morton April 30, 2019 - 10:58 pm

Thank you for the info on sewing curves! You make it seem pretty easy. I’m going to watch the rest of this series…I would love to make a Wedding Ring quilt for my Daughter! 🙂

Reply

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