Earlier this month at our March NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild meeting we introduced quick demos - 20-minute sessions with members teaching members techniques, tips, and tricks. An email requesting volunteers was sent out and our VP, Bernadette, requested someone demo Y-Seams, more specifically me! To demo Y-seams I've used an 8 point star (45° points) and I've put together some info here about working with angles around a centre point: The centre of anything has 360° around it - you can add as many pieces as you want around a point and they'll all join up perfectly as long as the angles of each all add up to 360°, English Paper Piecing works in the same way. Your quilting ruler often has basic quilting angles marked on it - 45°/60°/90° or you can use a protractor to really start playing with your angles. Check out large sized protractors in your local DIY store, they're often cheaper than identical tools sold specifically for quilters and artists. Moving on now to a step-by-step photo version of my Guild demo - created for our guild members to refer back to and shared here so you can use it too. Beginner's Guide To Sewing Y-Seams Rather than marking your fabrics as above it's so useful if you can simply use the markings on your sewing machine foot to tell you when to stop sewing. Sewing machine manufacturers know how much quilters love their 1/4 inches so most add markings or grooves to their patchwork/1/4" feet to make life easier for us. Take a look at your 1/4" foot - does yours have markings? If it doesn't you might want to treat yourself to a new foot for your machine that does, it saves you so much time and improves accuracy so could be a worthwhile investment. Aren't those Y-seams easy after all? I hope my beginner's guide makes you want to give Y-seams a go if you do let me know how you go on and share your work too I'd love to see it - Chris :D Featured on: Clicking on an image will take you to a new page of crafty goodness :) Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own. Click to follow me on Follow Linky Parties This post may be linked to some great Linky Parties, always a great source of inspiration too. If you click through to my 'Fave Linky Parties' page you can see where I like to share my work.