Sewing 101, Tutorials, Uncategorized

Sewing Back-To-School: Prairie Points, Ric-Rac and Pom-Poms

This post is part of the Sewing Back-to-School series, 30 days of helpful sewing articles by guest bloggers. Feel free to check out the original Sewing Back-to-School post for schedule and previous posts!








Juliannaย from Jednoiglec has some *amazing* work; I am talking amazing. All of her projects are very intricately done. Julianna won a contest over at the Moda Bake Shop in April for her Bookkeeper, pictured above…so lovely! I am very jealous of her patience and creativity that is plain to see on all of her sewing projects…hop on over to her blog and take a look!

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Hello Everyone! I’m Julianna and I blog over at Jednoiglec. I am really thankful to Sara, who invited me to this super cool series. I’m a beginner quilter, but I hope that scrappy prairie points, sewing of ric-rac and pom-poms will help you in your creations!
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Scrappy prairie points and ric-rac sewn within this tutorial will look like this mug rug:

Scrappy prairie points
For the first time I’ve seen tutorial about making prairie points on the blog of super talented Penny from Sewtakeahike (you can find Penny’s tutorial HERE) and based on that tutorial I figured out other way of sewing prairie points, which can be used with scraps.
You’ll need some squares – the size depends on how big you want to make prairie points. Before you start sewing it’s good to fold one prairie point to see if the size fits to your project.
I’ve used 4 inches squares (this was perfect size to use Munki scrap) to make a purple “rainbow”:
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If you want to make visible on your prairie points small prints (like Munki fabrics) you’ll have to make some fussy cuts. Here are some guidelines for such fussy cutting:

This fussy cutting guidelines are for triangles visible in first row of prairie points.
If you want to make prairie points with lots of such prints, it’s good to make some template from paper:

When your squares are cut, fold each square in triangle and then again in smaller triangle:

It’s easier to put all prairie points together when each of them is ironed, but you can also pin it as on the above photo.
On the first photo you’ve may noticed that I’ve numbered the squares – it helps if you want to keep some order in your prairie points (like in my purple “rainbow”). You can of course make it random (if yes, please don’t pay attention to the numbers).
Put 1st and 3rd square folded in triangle right after each other. These squares folded in triangles will be visible in the second line.

Now put the squares folded in triangles, which will be visible in first line – lines on your cutting mat will help you to place them in proper place:

Above photos made on cutting mat were just to pay your attention to the layout – now place your squares folded in triangles in the place where prairie points should be visible (and pin it to background fabric):

Please note that bottom edges of triangles are right at the same place as bottom edges of background fabric.
To make sewing easier, it’s good to sew triangles to background fabric using smaller seam allowance than you usually use:


Put the top fabric on the right place – like this:


Pin it:

And sew all together using regular seam allowance you use. After sewing and ironing fabric, your prairie points will look like this:

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I was so busy with making photos that I didn’t noticed that my background fabric doesn’t not match perfectly with prairie points:)
You can use this way of sewing scrappy prairie point in lots of projects – for example as a pillow decoration:
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This way of sewing prairie points it’s more time consuming than regular way of sewing prairie points from one piece of fabric, but it’s worth the time spend on cutting and sewing!

Ric-rac

There are many sizes of ric-rac and they’re made of different materials (the best are cotton – you don’t have to pay attention when you’re ironing). Here’s a photo comparing cotton jumbo ric-rac and polyester ric-rac of regular size:
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Ric-racs can be used in many different ways, but one rule is common: stitches should be placed in the middle of ric-rac trim.
Sewing it’s easier when you mark some lines by water-soluble pen or simply by machine stitches – and then follow it while sewing.
The middle of ric-rac should be placed a little bit closer to the edges than seam allowance used in sewing binding:
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Sewing corners of ric-rac trim is more complicated if the trim is wide (like jumbo), regular sized trim is easier to sew – just stop the needle in the corner (you have to use the button which allows to needle to be placed in the item), raise the foot, turn your item to the next side and start sewing further.

Ends of ric-rac trim can be sewn in the following way:




Pom-poms

Sewing pom-poms is much the same as ric-rac. The most important is sticking to appropriate seam allowances. Before you start sewing pom-poms try if seam allowances chosen by you, will allow you to sew it with your sewing machine (I’m using regular foot to sew pom-poms and some pom-poms are too big to use 1/4 inches seam allowance).
Happy sewing!
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PS. I hope that my instructions were clear enough – I don’t speak in English so well (usually I clear my thought in more complicated way that it could be done:).
So don’t hesitate to ask questions if you’ve got some doubts!

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9 thoughts on “Sewing Back-To-School: Prairie Points, Ric-Rac and Pom-Poms

  1. Thank you so much, for the tutorial and pictures!

  2. Love the prairie point tutorial – these would be perfect to dress up pillows around the house! Thank you ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. diana says:

    Very easy to follow, great pics ๐Ÿ™‚ Thank you!

  4. Poppyprint says:

    So fun! Thank you!

  5. Karen says:

    Thanks for including the details for the fussy cut prairie points. That is a great idea. It would have taken me many mis-cuts and forever to figure out how to make it look right.

  6. jednoiglec says:

    Ladies, thank you very much for your lovely comments!

  7. Becky says:

    Your directions are wonderful! Thank you so very much. I especially like your nifty fussy cut template idea.

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