Seminole Stripping: Not Done in the Nude

Kathleen McCormick From Cambridge Quilts

We've talked about cutting strips and resewing them to make intricate patchwork.






The Seminole Indians have always been the masters of this. Seminoles were a tribe in the Florida cypress swamps. The people who had come to Christianize them also taught them to sew quilts as well. But they were developed a form of  strip patchwork that involved stitching, cutting and restitching.

 Vintage Seminole Skirt From/Miss Farfalla's Etsy Shop

Traditionally they made clothing with their piecing. This is a traditional Seminole skirt. They also made jackets, shirts and other garments, as well as quilts.

Seminole Pieced Apron from Ms Sews It All

It's easier to understand how this piecing is accomplished by seeing the back. It's all strips, cut at different angles and resewed.




Here are several construction diagrams. 

From Lakeview Stitching

From Creating So Many Colors

Seminole Tutorial

Karen Pior has this fabulous tutorial on her page at Sew Well Maide.

Contemporary quilt by Niki Valentine Vick

Seminole piecing is quick, very intricate and beautiful. 

Traditionally it's done with solids, but traditions, like rules, are made to be broken.

If you'd like to add amazing pieced detail to your quilting, Seminole pieces is an easy way.

Strippy Stripes: Past the Jelly Roll

The advent of  the Modern Quilt Movement and pre cut jelly rolls have made strip quilts really popular. 

From Satin Moon 

We see a lot of the instant jelly roll quilts. They are fun. Just sew the strips together and you have a quilt

From Texas Lovely

But since the advent of the rotary cutter, quilters have begun to see pieced fabric just as fabric. A pieced section of strips is something you can cut up and sew together to make a more complicated, and interesting pattern. 

From Big Horn Quilts

So we'll look at several ways to take stripped piecing and turn it into much more intricate work, by cutting, turning and resewing our strips.

Reeze Hanson, Morning Glory Designs

Once you start viewing your pieced strips as a starting spot, you'll be amazed at what you can do with them. We'll look at cutting triangles, bargello,  and Seminole piecework as ways you can turn your strippy stripes into awesome piecing.