Oh - K

When I was teaching the letters class at QQ2013 in St Louis last month, I had to explain how to make the letter K to several students. It's kind of a mind-bender, and one student was having a particularly hard time understanding what it was I was asking her to do.

Finally I pinned the two pieces of fabric together and handed it to her. "Sew these together along this edge," I said. "When you open it up, you'll understand."  She did as I asked, and when she pressed the seam open her face lit up. "OH!"

So here's how I do it.
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I start by making a kind of an L, but here the size of the background is important. It has to be BIG, because we're working with diagonals here.

That skinny piece is the top diagonal of the K. It has to be skinnier than the rest.
 

Can you see where this is going? The inner corner of the K is a 90-degree angle. Notice how that inside corner does NOT touch the upright. It's a little thing, but I think it makes a difference.

Got it yet?

 Make sure you allow for the seam allowance when you get ready to add the upright.

I've trimmed it to size here, but normally I'd leave it as is until I'm ready to sew letters together.

Some letters make sense as you sew them together, some make sense only when you cut away the excess. The K is one of the latter.



As I am writing this I am watching Game 6 of the World Series. I live an hour's drive north of Boston, so it stands to reason I am rooting for the Red Sox. I'm old enough to remember the heartbreak of 1967 and then again in 1975 and 1986. Every now and again there's an ad to "stand up to cancer." I'm having a colonoscopy on Friday, so I'll be quiet for a day or two until I get back to "normal." Let's stand together.