2010 - Week 8 - Midnight Moths

Wow! Can you believe it? It's Friday already! Time for a new block. This week my random selector came up with 'Midnight Moths'. It's a 9-inch block with lots of HST. This one is going to be a challenge for me, I think. Enjoy!

Happy Sewing everyone!

Another "Dual Duty Block"

Week # 8 was a really pretty 12" star. Just the sort I needed for the pillows I'm making from the Hawaiian Shirt fabric. I think the blue batik adds to the island feel, and like it much better than the light color the pattern called for in the center of the block. Both the Kahala fabrics (the two prints)were super-stretchy, but the FBP triangles are making me much more accurate with my piecing... thanks, QP! I like this one, and I'd do it again.

MORE BLOCKS DONE

My relaxation time is making these blocks.

Patch as Patch Can....WEEK 6......
what does that mean? These patches are put in so precisely to make the pattern, there seems to be no 'patch as can' about this block. Can you see I boobed on the dark fabric, I used the wrong side sometimes...Oh well!!

My Lucky Stars...WEEK 7
Oh yeah! With 69 pieces to this 8" - yes I stuck to that size crazy person -I cannot see anything 'lucky' in it, only how it went together - surprisingly easy!!

Morning Star 2 - WEEK 8
I really enjoyed making this little block, well 12" block, I am very happy with the way it turned out.

Fancy Stripes - WEEK 9
hmm more like cheaters Log Cabin really, this was sooo quick to make, it fairly flew through the sewing machine.

Bears Tracks... WEEK 10
A lovely block cos it is to do with Bears. I collect soft teddies or ornament's of bears so was very happy this was in the pack to make. Are they coming or going?

Chimneys & Cornerstones... WEEK 11
Not a lot to say of this cos it was another speedy one to make, love the secondary pattern you get when you link it with Courthouse Steps though. Nice one!

The Queen's X... WEEK 13
hee hee she was probably cross someone put those little triangles in her square!!!

Slowly but surely, I am catching up. Having fun whilst doing so too. :-)
Is this OK to put several in one posting or should they all be separate??

the good and the bad

I'm back from my trip and finished up the last two blocks tonight. The first one I like a lot...

the second one, not so much! I wanted to use cherries again, so I converted this to a 9" size; I did the square in a square treatment for the center and flying geese on the sides, and I ripped, ripped, ripped but still didn't get the lines to match up very well. I think it would have been easier to get better results by using the original pattern directions for 16 HSTs -- but I don't know if I want to make it again!

Em's block #8

Now that was nice. Quick and easy. Very nice after last weeks. I liked Brenda's color placement. I did a variation of that. I like Brenda's better. I couldn't get a good pic of this one. My son is taking a photography class and has been playing with the adjustment on my camera. His tech illiterate mother does not know how to put things back to their original settings. Thanks Donna for picking an easy one this week. I needed it. Also thanks for helping me improve my piecing. This is a lot of fun.

Brenda with a brighter attempt at #8

I made the block again, this time for my guild challenge, using the chambray print as background and bright prints for contrast. I Googled Mary's triangles and shaded four patches ( name of the four outside blocks) and found several methods of sewing the corner red square on a chambray rectangle and making an asymetrical four patch, which is layered with the dark blue print to make HST. I took the method one step further by strip piecing the red and chambray, cutting 2.5 inch subcuts and then making the four-patches. I didn't bookmark my references, sorry, but its worth searching out the method. Now I'm not afraid of those shaded four-patches anymore and can see some real possibilities in them. Thanks Pixie, for choosing this one.

Big Star, Little Star

I finished Morning Star 2. I really liked this block. It was easy and turned out great! But I had a little mind lapse as I was cutting out the fabrics and ended up with hour glass blocks that were too small. So I made some more the right size and completed this block.

Then I took the smaller hourglass blocks and cut them down to 3 1/2in. I made each section of this block 3 1/2 in. unfinished to end up with a 9-in. block. I used softer colours because my 9-in. blocks will be used for a baby quilt.

Giraffe in the Morning

This block was fun to make! I have run out of the pink batik I was using for background, so I decided to make this one with a purple background. That's why the values are kind of switched up from most of your blocks. I was thinking of going shopping to get another pink for my background, but I think instead I will shop from my stash. When we're all done (eventually) it'll be really interesting to see what happens with all these blocks!

Morning Star 2 - A Leap of Faith

I took a leap of faith this week and I actually cut all the pieces exactly to size instead of making them larger and them trimming them down to size after making the various components. I'm pretty close to the 12 1/2" block size so I must say all the practice really has paid off. It still is a bit challenging sewing on the diagonal without stretching the fabric or have it go a bit wonky, but I'm sure that will also get better over time.

Brenda's week 8

I'm happy with this star, although I didn't follow the method in the instructions either. I attempted to create the corner blocks with a HST method, but couldn't wrap my head around how to make a four-patch that would have the right dimensions to cut in half diagonally. I see someone else has posted a link to a method and I'm going to check it out. I used more hand dyes to with the light marbled background to match the other blocks I've made for this Block Party. You can see I've been watching more than participating, but I'm learning something every week.

Lovely Star This Morning

I really like this one! Easy to construct, versatile and it would make a nice finished quilt. As usual the directions leave a lot to be desired but were better on this one because that awful HST technique was not used.

That corner unit seemed familiar so I looked through my bookmarks and found this
This gal has devised a way to use this block to make a built in border. Great idea, huh?

Since there are some participants here that are newer quilters, I thought I'd share a few tips I've gotten over the years.

When sewing the parts of hourglass blocks, start at a pointy end, like this:



The points tend to shift so starting there keeps them together. Another tip is to use a "laying tool" when you are sewing.



It helps to hold those little pointy parts together as they feed through the needle,

If you are sewing a cut shape to a piece that has a crucial point to match like this one:



Make the job easier. Don't layer the parts like this.



You just make it difficult to match your point. Be sure you feed the parts through the needle with the crucial spot showing like this:



You have a much better shot at hitting that mark when you can see it!

I don't want to give anyone the impression that I'm an expert. Far from it! I just know that I have been helped along the way with some simple hints and tips that seemed obvious to experienced sewers but weren't obvious to me as a novice.

No Insanity Here!

I had a lot of fun with this block and enjoyed making it so much. I would definitely make this block again, but did I miss something, was there no dimension for the center block? I just guessed based upon the other blocks after they were sitiched. Maybe I just missed it.

morning star...

I decided to follow the instructions on the quilter's cache site, though I think they are far from the best way to put this block together.... all those triangles cause me nightmares.

I think you could make the corner subunits by sewing a light brown rectangle 3.5 by 2.5 onto the dark green 2.5" square. And then, joining two of those units together so the green squares were diagonally opposite each other lay a dark brown rectangle on top and sew through the diagonal before cutting the rectangle into two and squaring it all up.... Not positive, but I think that'd work....

it's a pretty little block, and much much much saner than the last couple of weeks :-)

Heather - Week 8

I like this one! It was fairly easy and stress free. It would have been even better if I had made the hourglass blocks the right size the first time. Then I didn't have enough green left to make the correct sized set so I added the yellow. I really like the yellow so I guess it was one of those things that Bob Ross always called "happy accidents."

Morning Has Broken

What a great block!  I made this one at 10 1/2 inches, and I love it!  There is a way to make those corner units (the blue square and white triangle part) with strips, but I couldn't find the book it was in.  I will try to see if I can find a tutorial somewhere.

week # 8

I'm happy to report that it looks like this week, while not "easy", wont send anyone to the loony bin... :-) I know, small praise, but after the last couple of weeks I was almost afraid to choose a block....

This week our block is "morning star 2" a nice 12 inch block. And only 33 pieces! Yes there are a number of triangles, yes, at least some require cutting triangles and sewing them together, BUT at least all the subunits are square so they can be trimmed and evened up before assembling the whole block... :-) and there might be way to do a number of those triangles by stacking squares, sewing, cutting and re-stacking -- I'm not sure my brain can't quite grasp whether it'd work or end up a mess right now...