Texas Teardrops Quilt Along ~ Adhering the Teardrops

Good Monday morning everyone.  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  I’m super excited because I’m heading to McKinney, Texas this week for some quilting classes taught by Linda Taylor.  I’mpretty scared about one of the classes…feathers.  I can’t quilt a feather to save my life.  Let’s hope I’m not wasting my money.  I’m not so sure I’ll be able to do it but I guess I’m going to find out.

Today’s quilt along topic is a quick and easy one.  It’s time to adhere the teardrops to your background blocks.  If you haven’t cut the background blocks, you need to do that now {refer to your pattern for the size}.

The easiest way to make sure you have your teardrop centered is to fold the blocks in half diagonally and press.  The pressed line will be the guide for teardrop placement.  The teardrop points will line up with this pressed line.

You don’t have to get the teardrop perfectly centered from top to bottom.  You’ll be squaring up your blocks after the applique step.  Just try to get the teardrops as close to the center as possible.

Now it’s time to mix and match all the teardrop pieces.  I waited to press my blocks until after all the teardrops were laid out.  I didn’t want to press anything down in case I had to rearrange the pieces.  I tried not to put similar colors right next to each other.

Here’s your chance to get creative.  You can use 4 teardrop pieces for each block or leave some out like I did.  Some of my blocks have 4 teardrop pieces and some have only 3.  It’s totally up to you.  Have fun with it.  You could even have some blocks with 2 teardrop pieces {I didn’t do any like that}.  There are no rules.

I’ve had several people ask what happens when the teardrops aren’t perfectly cut.  What if they don’t fit together?  Here’s the best secret…it will be ok.  I had several pieces that didn’t fit perfectly together.  In some cases I tried different pieces to find a better fit.

I switched the solid pink to pink ladybugs.  These pieces fit together really good.  A little white still shows but it’s ok.  It won’t even be noticeable when the quilt is finished!

My teardrops are NOT perfect.  I have spots where white {the background} is peeking through the teardrop pieces.  If you have some that really bother you, change them out.  But don’t spend lots of time making sure they fit together perfectly…you’ll end up in the looney bin.  Or you’ll be hunting me down…

It’s important, very important, not to drag your iron across the pieces.  It’s very easy to stretch the teardrop pieces.  I might have messed up a couple pieces myself and ended up peeling them off and starting over.  Remove the paper backing before you press.  Press and lift, press and lift.  Do not drag.  Dragging leads to banging head against brick wall.

Remember…if you do like I did and leave out some teardrop pieces, you will have leftover teardrop pieces.  I had 18 pieces leftover.  I might try to use them on the back or make a matching pillow.  I haven’t decided yet.

That just about covers today’s topic.  I hope everyone is having fun creating their teardrop quilts!  It’s so exciting seeing them all come together.

Wish me luck with the feather class…I have a feeling it’s going to be hard.  Let’s hope my feathers don’t look like they belong on some sick chickens.

7 thoughts on “Texas Teardrops Quilt Along ~ Adhering the Teardrops”

  1. I’ve been traveling the past few weeks and haven’t been able to stitch along – bummer!!! But I hope to catch up soon. I’m really excited about making my own Texas Tear Drops quilt :*) Have fun in your class – you’ll be amazing!!!

  2. My teardrops aren’t prefect either but they still look good! 🙂 I will be posting a picture on the flickr group pretty soon. Hope you have great success learning to quilt feathers.

  3. I received the fabric on Friday but have been away and haven’t started yet. Oh I so hope to catch up this week. Vicki I would find it super helpful if you would post a small picture of your quilt when you write these posts so that we can refer to it without having to search for it elsewhere.

  4. Have fun in the class!!! I just learned feathers through a Angela Walters class on Craftsy:) Really a great calss!!!!! Now just to practice practice!!!! Ck out my blog to see my first try:)
    lousquiltncorner.blogspot.com

  5. Have fun in your class Vicki and I know you will do great! Everyone finds “their” type of feathers…..you’ll be fantastic! I have all my Texas Teardrops blocks lookin good!

Leave a Reply