Let’s Blog About Fabric
Lately, I’ve been thinking about my fabric stash and how little fabric I’ve had to purchase lately because I can almost always find what I need in my own fabric collection. I know some quilters that buy fabrics for a specific project and toss or give away the left-overs … but I suppose I am closer to the ladies in the cartoon.
How about you? Do you have a fabric stash? When you start a new project, do you turn to your stash, grab your car keys and head to your local fabric store, or let your fingers do the walking and shop online? Do you keep track of fabric coming in and being used? Do you have limits or goals when it comes to acquiring or using fabric?
This month, let’s blog about fabric. You might blog about a favorite fabric line or fabric designer, how you choose fabrics for a project, how you organize fabrics in your stash … or some other fabric-related topic of your choosing.
Blog about fabric and link your post below. I almost wrote, blog about your relationship with fabric … but I realize that I might seem a little like this panhandling woman.
source: Pickledish
Oh my Goodness! Iam so excited!!! WOW!
I am so Happy! I just won the Block Lotto and March’s block was a real learning experience for me! Oh Wow! Next month I will be receiving 13 beautiful quilt blocks called ‘Chained Star’. I am keeping my own blocks for a total of 17 Blocks …and I made 2 blocks extra to keep because I liked them that much! …almost a full quilt YAY! I am grateful for Jean Sophie Wood… for all her creativity and hard work in setting up the Block Lotto site, managing it and offering everyone her expertise and monthly challenges! I wish you all, the Joy and energy I am feeling right now…Thank you so very much!
Yipppiiieehhhh, that’s beginners luck!!!!!!!
I am so happy and I am looking forward to receive these wonderful blocks
Thank you so much 😀 😀 😀
Thank You, Helen
I received a lovely thank you card from Helen in the mail …………………. Thank you for the Thank You, Helen 🙂 Cheers, CathyC
More Beads on a String in
Received more Beads on a String…Thank You! to Charlene from Canada and Tracy from WA!!
Tracy enclosed a quilt raffle ticket 🙂 and Charlene some lovely flowers which made me think of Spring!
Sew Sweet!! Thank you, thank you!!!
Marie
Scrap-ifying the Star Chain Block
When I made my blocks for the lotto, I started thinking about making a quilt from these blocks in scrappy greens which led me to start thinking about the ways to make the block scrappy.
- The easiest, most straightforward approach would be to cut the background fabrics from different greens.
- You could also make it more scrappy by making the large 4 1/2 by 6 1/2-inch rectangles from two or more pieces.
- You could look at the block differently and assemble it as four 6-inch 9-patch units with a 2 inch pieced sashing (that includes the quarter-square units that form the star) and contrasting cornerstones (the center of the star).
I have pulled a stack of green fabrics from my stash, but haven’t decided yet which approach I’ll use–there’s been lot of design indecision and paralysis from analysis happening at sophie junction.
In the meantime, I happened to have a bunch of 2 inch squares which were cut for a border idea for a quilt project which, coincidentally also includes Star Chain blocks. I rejected the idea, but not before I had cut and sewn lots of these.
Last night I was inspired to use them as the background in a couple of blocks.
I could have made a better choice for the chain, but I’m going to leave it as is and use it as an opportunity to highlight it with quilting when I get to that point.
I’m working on an idea for a project that could include any of the blocks from this year … I’ll be back as soon as I have tested it. Here are the pieces I made from those squares. When I was done making these components, I had exactly ONE square left–it felt like it was meant to be.
Do you have any tips for making Quarter-Square Triangles?
Someone emailed me yesterday and asked for help making the Quarter-square Triangles (QST) that form the points for the star center in this month’s block. She was cutting them larger and trimming to size and kept ending up with points that were a little unequal.
I realized that the main reason that I, personally, usually do NOT cut larger when making these is because trimming them to size can be fiddly because you have to make sure the center point (where the four triangles meet) is in the center, which is 1 1/4 inch from each edge in our block) and that the diagonal seams are perfectly diagonal from each corner. I definitely use the 45% line on my ruler when I am trimming and it helps, but … if there is a better/easier/faster way, I just don’t know it.
Do you? If you cut larger and trim to size, do you have any tips to offer? Leave a comment and I promise to collect them all in one place and save them for the next time we are making blocks with QST units.
Module 1 Done
I finished my first module. It’s going to be fun to see how this develops.
Sophie’s Samplers – March Progress
I already shared the Star Chain blocks I’ve made for my samplers in this post. Here’s my collection of blocks for two quilts. I happened to have an empty design wall, so I couldn’t resist arranging them as they will be the in the quilts.
The understated queen size now has a bit of aqua:
And the mystery colored throw made as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge with blocks made from shades of blues, pinks and teals
Like I said on my blog today, if this quilt is starting to look interesting to you, it’s not too late to join the fun. I’ve included all the Mod-Mod-QAL update posts in the links on the At-a-Glance page. You can find all the block patterns linked on the 2014 Block Index page.
March Update – Mod-Mod Quilt-Along
Because quite a few quilters have already made their Star Chain blocks and assembled their first Module(s), I thought I would go ahead and publish the complete information for the March update.
This month, we add Star Chain blocks to our quilts and assemble the first module. Here are the blocks you’ll need so far
| Small | Crib | Throw | Twin | F/Q | King | |
| Star Chain Blocks | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Bead-on-a-String | 3 | 6 | 7 | 10 | 13 | 17 |
| Double Chevron Blocks | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 8 |
All Star Chain blocks are combined with a Double Chevron block and three Bead-on-a-String blocks to form the first module of the quilt.
Because the only guidelines for the blocks for your quilts are the ones you impose on yourself, you might decide to:
- make the background dark or light. If you are using a common background fabric, use it for the background in your blocks or the chain.
- change the corners of the star center to background fabric to emphasize the Ohio Star unit.
Here are the quilt layouts for each size, with the Star Chain blocks revealed.
Small (42-inch square)
4 modules arranged 2-by-2 |
Crib (42 by 63-inch rectangle)
6 modules arranged 2 (wide) by 3 (high) |
Throw (63 inch square)
9 modules arranged 3-by-3 |
Twin (63 by 84-inch rectangle)
12 modules arranged 3 (wide) by 4 (high) |
Full/Queen (84-inch square) 16 modules arranged 4 by 4 |
King (105 inch square) 25 modules arranged 5 by 5 |
If you are making blocks (or thinking about making blocks), please do blog about it here. Use the category my sampler and the tag mod mod qal. This will make it easy for someone to take a quick look at what others are up to by looking at posts in the my sampler category.
I’ll share the progress on my projects tomorrow.