Block of the Month - Summer

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Difficulty:

Category: Quilting

Type of item: Functional

For: Home

Style: Classic, Traditional

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Materials

Fabrics from my stash, sewing thread, Craftsy BOM instructions

What was your inspiration?

January - the rainbow fabric was my drop sheet under a hand-painted-tie-dye project; I changed the order of the # block and did one vertical stripe, then one horizontal, then the second vertical stripe, then the second horizontal.

February - I had extra strips left from cutting squares, so I made more triangles and arranged them into some related-but-different blocks. And of course then I needed to make 2 more for January.

March - I challenged myself to not cut any extra fabric - all of it came from my scrap bags, mostly pre-existing strips and a few odd-shaped bits. I picked the red/gold/cream ones first, then threw in the blue ones because so many of the reds had a touch of blue. For the spiderwebs I cut the strips I had initially used in half to make them even thinner, and used some lace and braid as well. My 2 "inspired by" blocks are pretty simple - the cross is made the same way as in the class, but each piece is turned so the lines point into the centre. For the octagon I cut a 14.5" square, drew lines from side to side and corner to corner to make it into triangles, then measured from the centre out 7" and marked corners for the octogon and drew it in. Then I cut along the triangle lines, covered the octagon area with strips and put it back together again! SO easy.

What are you most proud of?

Jan - Learning new techniques and putting them into practice quickly.
Feb - Squares that line up properly.
Mar - Making 4 whole blocks without using any new fabrics.

What advice would you give someone starting this project?

January - I think pressing the seams inward (towards the black) makes it neater on the back than if I had done white stripes and pressed outwards.
February - It takes ages to get through the measure-cut-sew-cut-iron process to make all the triangles, but putting the blocks together is really quick, especially if you pin each row and chain piece both blocks.
March - I think the blocks look best if you use as many different fabrics as possible and don't cut the strips the same width - if they're too much the same it looks like all the corners should match perfectly too, and who needs that pressure?