Thursday, February 21, 2013

5 Minute quilt block-- link to tutorial

Dawn was looking for a new block to share with the quilt group next week.  She shared the link to Suzanne McNeil's 5- minute quilt block with me and asked what did I think.  I think she gets extra points for finding a block before I did--lol!
You can visit Suzanne's site and see the tutorial  --Here

I have a 'pile' of calico that has been begging to be worked.  I had gone as far as to pull it out a couple of times but it always seemed to get back on the shelf uncut.

Well thanks to today being a SNOW day...... the rest of the story is yet to be written.
I am a fan of cut first and figure out the setting later.

Here is my cut Yellows to be use in the center position as the triangle/geese.

While I was chunky cutting my 'three' fabrics per block  I made a pile to be sub-cut into 2 1/2 inch strips for a possible piano key border.  If the 'keys' don't make it into the top, I will use them on the back.  Hope is to bust this aging collection and get it all off the shelf.  I will piece as much as possible into the back and the rest is going out the door to anyone who will give it a good home.  More on that threat later- lol

This is a very die friendly block. ... Cut three rectangles-  You can actually do this with any size rectangle, I used my GO Die # 55005  (3 1/2 x  6 1/2) 

I choose to always use my dark (browns, blues) on the bottom and Yellows as centers and Red/Pinks as the other side.

The first couple I sewed I took time to iron.  After doing about a dozen, I unplugged the iron and finger pressed, way faster.  I am all about not going crazy making a utility quilt.  No one every complains that a wrinkle kept them up at night!

See how the bottom right looks a bit off?  It actually fixes itself when I roll the edge.  Promise!

See all better and even better after it gets sewn-  I use a chicken tracks stitch and white thread.

Sew... here we go, two rows done and sewn together.  Eight more to go for a 60 x 72 (ish) center.
This is going to be a controlled scrappy, being that I am just using the three piles of fabrics.  I divided  each row of 12 into sets of 4,6,8, 12 of color A,B,C.  So in the example, There are 8 red-a and 4 red-b matched with 4 blue,4 black,& 4 blue, The yellows are 4a, 4b and 4a.
The second row is 4 red, 8 pink,  4 black-a, 4 black-b, 4 blue,  2 yellow-a , 4 yellow-b, 6 yellow-a

I am hoping as I progress there will be secondary light and dark chunks emerge.  We will see.....