Blocks – Page 21 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Swoon #5

Here is the next Swoon block. As I mentioned, I have to finally admit that this is a project that will turn into a quilt. I am not quite happy with the blue, but I think it will be okay in the grand scheme of all of the blocks.

More Donation Blocks

The Super Secret project is ready to go to the quilter, so I am back to my 26 Projects list. Before I start the Corner Store, I plan to put together the blue donation blocks into a baby quilt. I am going to put it together with sashing rather than just putting the blocks together. I think it will look nice. Hopefully, it won’t take long.

What do you think of the fish heads?

I hope that the black on white background fabrics will be considered fun and different rather than a poor choice. I don’t have much plain white, and I have plenty of the black on white.

One of the reasons I wanted to put this quilt top (not planning on quilting it, but you never know) together was so that people wouldn’t feel obligated to go out and buy fabric so they make blocks with the black on white designs to match mine.

I did put some of the earlier blocks in the donation basket at the last meeting.

I know it is silly to call this (3rd image from the top) block the Joel Dewberry block, but that one square of his print really stands out (2d row, 2d from the left). I like the graphic nature of that patch, so I always think of this block as the Joel Dewberry block.

The blocks I am showing today are all new. I already have enough blocks to make a small baby quilt top, so I guess these blocks will be for the next top!

I know the 4th image from the top is a bit of a repeat, but it is nice to see the blocks together. I was thinking of using black on white for the sashing, but looking at this image makes me wonder if I shouldn’t just sew the blocks together next to each other?

TFQ cut a lot of these squares as we were working on the Super Secret project. I really couldn’t have made all of these blocks without her.

I am also really like the Accuquilt Go!. I cut many of the background fabrics using the 2.5″ square die, which made cutting a breeze.

Look for a donation top from these blocks soon.

Donation Blocks Again

I made a few more donation blocks in between another project I am working on. I know I said this, but I enjoy making these blocks so much. I have only two more blue blocks to make until I have enough blocks to make a large enough Donation quilt.

Swoon #3

As I mentioned in my previous post on Swoon block, I am trying different ways of making these blocks. For this block, Swoon #3, I tried to make the yellow pieces one piece of fabric rather than cutting them into squares and half square triangles. I want to preserve the print as much as possible and not have those sections look choppy. I thought segments of the first Swoon block looked choppy.

I am very pleased with how this block turned out. The road was rocky, however, and I fiddled with it a lot. This block was on my design wall for a long time before I actually sewed it together.

First, I made the HSTs on the very outside of the block (pink dot and background) using my Triangle Technique.

Next, I cut 4.5″ squares for all the yellow pieces in the block (8 total).

Third, I cut 2.5″ squares out of the background fabric and the pink dot fabric. I sewed them on to the yellow, larger squares by drawing a line diagonally across the center of the smaller squares and sewing on that line. The goal was to fold the square back into a triangle.

After sewing the first one, I realized that sewing on the line was not the way to go. Folding back the square into a triangle did not cover the yellow 4.5″ square. I tried lining up the line on the small square with the inside edge of my 1/4″ foot, then I sewed just inside the line. That was just enough to make this technique work for me. I have tried to illustrate this part of the post with the photo of the piece (left) in the machine. Can you see how the foot is lined up with that drawn line?

There is a failure part of this blog post as well. In order to make sure the blocks would be large enough to cover the corners of the larger square, I cut the smaller (corner) squares larger than 2.5″ the first time around. I found, when I sewed them on that the idea was good, but didn’t work. The reason it didn’t work was because the squares were simply too big and went below the place they should have been. This meant that the quarter inch seam allowance was too large to produce good matching seams.

Once I had the correct size of squares down (thanks, TFQ!) and realized I needed to sew just inside the seam, the block flew together as much as an approximately 63 piece block can.

I am pleased with the look.

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First two Swoon blocks link

Donation Blocks

This has been a great couple of months for donation blocks. I made a few more the past few days in between sewing for the Renewed Jelly Roll Race. I am unreasonably pleased with these blocks. I find them so fun to make. I am not sure why. The only thing I can think of is that there is an opportunity to play with a bit of color.

Tother thing is that they go together so quickly using Bonnie K. Hunter‘s Leaders and Enders method. My only stumbling block right at the moment is I am out of the kits the Charity Coordinators made, so I am cutting my own patches from scraps and I seem to be constantly short of the right color or background. I used some various black on white prints for the blue block above and hope that will be ok and not ruin the look the Charity Coordinators are going for. I am about to get out my Accuquilt Go! 2.5″ square die and cut a bunch of backgrounds for future use.

This block has a weird background, because I took the photo on my bathroom rug. As hideous as the carpet is in my workroom, it does make a fairly inoffensive background for my photos. We had a fairly dramatic shower of sparks which heralded the demise of the overhead light in my workroom. I have some task lighting, but the floor was just too dark for photos. The bathroom floor is small black and white tile, which, I thought, would have been too busy.

Yes, it is a brown block. The boys need quilts, too, and brown works for them. Green and blue, too, I imagine. This fabric is from the scraps of the back of FOTY 2011. I tried to get some of the words for these squares, because I like words on quilts. Letters (as in the snailmail kind) are even better.

These greens are, mostly, more boyish also, if boys can be pigeon-holed into liking certain colors.The Young Man adores red, not the greyed or browned down reds, but scarlet-type reds.

The blue blocks are definitely the ones I will make the most of, but it is nice to make some other blocks in different colors as well.

The one yellow-green (with the x-es) looks quite out of place in this block. I am glad there is another slightly yellow-green square in it (upper left hand corner) so that it is looks a bit like it goes. I am not ripping it out.

You will see some of the same fabrics in this second blue block as you saw int he first one. I hope that the Charity Coordinators will receive enough blue blocks with different fabrics to mix my blocks into different quilts.

I did fussy cut a bit on this one, in order to get that cherry and whipped cream into the patch rather than in the seam allowance. I thought it would be fun.

I have a small stack of squares waiting to be sorted into color groups. I try not to duplicate a fabric in the same block unless all or most of the fabrics are the same. I also have lots of scraps to be cut. I am trying to decide if I should cut larger scraps into 2.5″ squares so I have more patches to use or if I should continue to cut one or two squares out of scraps and leave the rest of the scrap for another project?

I had an incorrectly cut hexagon from the Flower Sugar Hexagon quilt, so I measured and found it would yield one 2.5″ patch. I needed a green patch, so I cut it. Nice to have fabrics from a variety of projects show up in these blocks.

I think I have made 11 donation blocks so far in the past two months. I have one more close to being finished and I have at least another week before the meeting. I think that could be a whole quilt. If I had a wish, it would be that people did not need to be comforted by the quilts I am helping to make.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
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7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30