Or ricrac, or rick rack, whatever. I found a lot of spellings when I was trying to decide!
This fun way to piece curves was part of a class I taught this past weekend, and it was so cute in the blocks the students made that I just had to do a tutorial.
We were piecing quarter circles as part of my quilt YOW, which you’ve already seen:
So here is a partially assembled block with one curved seam left to go:
Select rickrack and lay it along the edge of the convex piece. Probably would work with the concave piece, too, but I haven’t tried that:
Sew the rickrack down with the usual 1/4 inch seam
Now turn the raw edge and attached rickrack to the back along the 1/4 inch seam and press. Here’s the front:
And here’s the back:
Lay the convex piece on top of the concave piece and line up the edges.
Flip over and try to line up the raw edges all along the seam on the back.
Applique the convex piece to the concave piece by stitching in the ditch. I used silver metallic thread just for fun, but matching thread works well, of course. And here’s the finished block.
Sort of modern-retro. Go try it!
Zippy Quilts 
That looks so cute! I hope I remember to try that sometime!
We were all kind of surprised how much we liked it. The shop sold some rickrack 🙂
That looks amazing. What a great way to hide piecing problems!! And I suppose the concave piece, as “background,” could be a whole block without cutting away the quarter circle. Could trim away after appliqueing. Sort of the round equivalent of “stitch and flip” corners that you trim away behind.
Yes, and it was fun 😃
Another brilliant work of art!
Thanks, Chela 😊
I’m always up for trying something new and in this case ‘curves made easy’! Thanks for the mini-tutorial, I’ll be putting my rick rack (sp?) to good stitching in future projects.
🙂
I didn’t show it, but the technique works for a full circle, too.
ohhhh that’s even better! Thanks!
What a great idea. I’m definitely going to be using that one.
Thanks!
Okay that is very awesome and creative! I had a bunch of rick rack that a friend gave me from her grandmother’s stash many years ago and darn it, I donated it to the charity thrift shop years ago. I guess I was not ready for it yet, but now I am interested in it!
Grandma’s rickrack was cotton before cotton was mercerized, and it shrank. Guess how I know 😏
Oh no! Sorry that happened!
Looks like great fun. Adding it to my “someday” file.
And now you may find that you need that technique for something…
LOL