August do.Good Stitches Block Tutorial

I cannot believe it is my turn to be queen bee again! This summer is flying right by. July was crazy! Vacation, visitors, more visitors and a couple of custom quilt orders! It's no wonder August snuck right up! Here's a quick block tutorial that we'll be using for Promise Circle do.Good Stitches this month.

I recently came across a similar design done with paper piecing by Amy Ellis.... I haven't quite mastered paper piecing yet so I figured out another way to make it.

Materials for one 6 1/2 inch unfinished star block:
White background fabric
4 - 1.5in x 3in rectangles
Plus white scraps to complete the points

Fabric for stars
4 - 3 inch squares
1 - 1.5 inch square

Take one of your 3-inch squares and measure 1 1/4 inches on both sides of a single corner. On the wrong side place a small mark at each of the 1 1/4 inch lines. Do this for each of the four 3-inch squares.

Grab your ruler and, starting at the opposite corner of the corner with the two marks, draw a straight line to each of the marks. These will be your sew lines.

Grab a white scrap and place it right sides together with your marked square. Follow one of the sew lines. Before sewing you might want to take a quick peek and make sure you have enough white fabric to re-trim the square, this part can be a little tricky the first few you make.

Next trim the excess off 1/4 inch from your sew line

Open and press

Trim off excess white scrap so that you have a 3 inch square again

Do the same with your second marked sew line so that you end up with a 3 inch square with your color fabric in the center surrounded by your white background fabric. Complete this for each of the four 3-inch squares.

Next assemble the star blocks.

Trim block to 6 1/2 inches

Hopefully I captured all the important steps - if you have questions let me know and I'll be sure to answer them! I've added a link to this starburst quilt block tutorial to my Tutorials page.

Link Parti's 

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Vertical Chevron Crib Quilt Tutorial

One of my goals in 2015 is to write more tutorials. I just as well get the year off to a good start! This tute is for a 32x48 crib size vertical chevron quilt and includes measurements and yardage requirements.

This is my fabric pull for the vertical chevron quilt plus solid white, fabric requirements below.

After selecting the fabrics, I grabbed my graph paper and sketched out the pattern. I guess I'm old school that way

For the 32x48 finished quilt you'll need 96 - 4 inch finished half square triangle (HST) blocks. I used this handy chart from Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts. Alyce highly recommends adding a full inch to the Finished HST Size to get your Beginning Square Size. Totally agree, I much rather measure a full or half inch instead of 7/8 or 3/8. It's simpler and takes less time - I'm a fan of both of those things. There are several methods for making HST's I tend to use the Traditional Method even though it involves marking, which takes a little extra time. There is no waste and no sewing on the bias.

Now that we've got the the HST discussion out of the way...  We're needing 4 inch finished squares - so using the chart and a word from Alyce, we know that our Beginning Square Size is 5 inches. If you would like your quilt to look like mine with 2 aqua rows, 1 row of orange and grey and white rows between, you'll need the following number of 5 inch squares and yardage
48 White squares - 7/8 yard
24 Aqua squares - 1/2 yard
12 Grey squares - 1/3 yard
12 Orange squares - 1/3 yard

Once we have all of our squares nice and tidy, we can move onto getting the pieces ready for sewing. First we need to mark ALL of the white squares with a diagonal line using a ruler like so. Just take our pencil or marker and draw from corner to corner using a ruler! Don't skip this, it will save you time later. It's very easy to get 'off track' if you try to 'eye-ball it' without the line.

Now we have a line on each white square. This is NOT our sewing line. Instead grab a colored square and place it right side together with the white square so that you can see the line you have drawn.

Great, now we are going to sew a 1/4 inch seam on each side of the drawn lines. In other words each square will get the 1/4 inch treatment twice just like this

Using your ruler and rotary cutter, cut on the drawn line in the center.

You now have two individual blocks with 1/4 inch seams!

 

Now we need to iron them, you could iron them to one side or the other, but for this pattern I like to iron the seams open

Once we have our blocks with seams pressed it's important to go back and 'square up.' Remember when we added a little extra 'just in case' - this is the place we square up our blocks to 4 1/2 inches. Squaring up makes everything going forward a little easier by keeping the blocks all the same size.

If you have a square ruler this is a good time to use it, if not a regular ruler works just fine. Do this for every single block, all 96 of them at precisely 4.5 inch square.

Using your design wall (or the floor!) lay out the blocks in rows of 8 by 12 - if you made a graph for color placement, now's the time to use it! Here's a look at rows one and two of my finished quilt. Repeat this pattern 6 more times.

Using a 1/4 inch seam, piece together each row of 8. I use a scant 1/4 inch and trim the rows if necessary before attaching the next row until you have all 12 rows. Quilt and bind! You can see my finished vertical chevron crib quilt and coordinating pillow sham here. I used a charcoal minky backing. I'd love to see your finished vertical chevron quilt!

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Limeade Chevron Quilt and Bonus Projects

What I really wanted to call this quilt was Margarita... the bright pink and lime colors, yummy! But this quilt is for a toddler soooo I think I better save that for another day! I've been working on the limeade chevron quilt since my Gumballs and Elephants post. The top is done, backing is pieced, and quilt has been basted. Just waiting for some inspiration for the quilting.

Bonus Pieces 

While I'm waiting for the inspiration arrow to strike I'll share a little more about bonus projects. This is one of of those quilts with tons and tons of leftover bonus pieces to make bonus projects. Here's how I make bonus pieces for this particular quilt:

This chevron pattern is made up of flying geese blocks using rectangles and squares. My rectangles were 6.5x3.5 and squares measured 3.5. Two squares for each rectangle. I mark the center of the square pieces as normal for this block, on the wrong side of the fabric. Then using a 1/2 inch ruler I mark a second line off to the side. If you don't have a 1/2 inch ruler, just move your ruler over half an inch and mark the second line.

Do this for all of your square pieces.  

Align your square and rectangles, right sides together. Stitch on the center line as usual to make your flying geese block. Chain piecing is a big help here! Once you've finished with your chain, remove the entire chain and feed it through again this time stitching on the second line you drew. You don't need to snip in between pieces until both lines have been stitched. 

Now cut right down the center of your two lines. You will have your flying geese block and your HST bonus piece! Repeat with another square to complete your flying geese block. The great thing about using this method for flying geese is two bonus pieces for each block, yay!

And each quilt will make mounds of bonus pieces! All ready to go just need ironing and squaring up! These HST measured 2.5 inches after squaring up.

Bonus pieces aren't limited to flying geese blocks. You can use this method anytime that you're cutting away a corner. I use it often when making star blocks. It's easier to piece HSTs while they are still part of the square. Once you cut the corner away if you want to put the two triangles back together again you'll end up sewing on the bias which is tricky since the bias is stretchy and the corners always seem to get sucked into the sewing machine while trying to piece them.

A few projects I've made with bonus pieces when making this quilt

Chevron Doll Quilt

HST Pillow Sham

My argyle pinwheel pillow was also created using bonus pieces from a star quilt. There are about a bazillion things to do with HSTs!

Link Parti's 

Take a look at the linki parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to Freshly Pieced My Quilt Infatuation Whoop Whoop Friday i have to say and Pretty Bobbins