2023 Spring Qube QAL

Part 1 Instructions and Yardage Requirements

Part 2 Cutting for All Blocks

Part 3 Block 1 Cutting and Construction

Part 4 Block 2 Cutting and Construction

Part 5 Block 3 Cutting and Construction

Part 6 Block 4 Cutting and Construction

Part 7 Block 5 Cutting and Construction

Part 8 Block 6 Cutting and Construction

Part 9 Quilt Assembly

Progress on Nine-Patch

On Saturday Stitches on the blue feather quilt studio Facebook page, I posted a project with a plan to use up some orphan star blocks. The setting was going to be nine-patch Irish chain blocks alternating with the stars. This is the picture from Facebook showing the stars, the blue example of the nine-patch, and the beginning four-patches for the nine-patch. Because the star blocks are multicolored, it seemed a neutral fabric for the nine-patch blocks would work best.

Saturday Stitches Project

The stars and the 9-patch blocks didn’t look good to me, and I decided to go to Plan B. Thus, I used charm squares from Riley Blake Fabrics. They were just slightly larger than the 6″ square on point from the 12″ AccuQuilt GO! Qube so I made 6″ SOP blocks instead of stars. This is the finished center of the quilt. It will need borders to make it a lap size quilt. The charm squares worked well enough and the square on point blocks were so easy to make. Can I finish it by Friday?

What are you working on this week? I’d love to see what you’re doing.

Nesting Geese Border Tutorial

Last week I showed you a Migrating Geese Border Tutorial inspired by a Youtube video by Deb Tucker. This week I want to show you how to make a “Nesting Geese” border for your quilt. This is a quilt that I designed last Spring and today is the first time it has appeared on my website. The center is made by my favorite method for making a a throw quilt to accent a room. I call this method Four Blocks and a Border.

Cutting Instructions: You can use any size Qube and the block will be the finished size of the Qube that you use.

  • Background Fabric:
    • Cut 4 Shape 3 Half Square Triangles (HST)
    • Cut 4 Shape 4 Quarter Square Triangles (QST)
  • Color Fabric (may be assorted colors or a single color:
    • Cut 4 Shape 4 Quarter Square Triangles

Step 1: Sew a light and a dark Shape 4 QST sewing the long sides of the QST together as shown. Make two QST subunits


Step 2: Sew a dark Shape 4 QST to the left side of one of the Shape 4 QST subunits and a light Shape 4 QST to the right side of the Shape 4 QST subunit. This is for one half of the quilt block. You will be stitching a short side of the Shape 4 QSTs together.It works best for me to lay these out on a felt board before stitching to be sure that the correct sides are stitched together.


Step 3: Sew a dark Shape 4 QST to the left side of the other Shape 4 QST subunit and a light Shape 4 QST to the right side of the Shape 4 QST subunit. This is for the other half of the quilt block.


Step 4: Sew a Shape 3 HST to the top and a Shape 3 HST to the bottom of the Shape 4 QST unit. This completes one half of the block.


Step 5: Sew a Shape 3 HST to the top and a Shape 3 HST to the bottom of the Shape 4 QST unit. This completes the second half of the block.


Step 6: Sew the two halves of the block together to complete the quilt block. Note that the V of the geese is at the bottom of the quilt block.


Note: Another option is to reverse the two halves of the block to make a block with the V of the geese at the top of the quilt block.
And a third option is to use a half block to complete a border row as needed to make the length required for your border. The entire border can be made with half block units to fit your quilt top. You can see in the quilt below how a half block was used to finish each border on the quilt.


Nesting Geese Quilt

A Little Happy Dance

Last week I did a tutorial for Migrating Geese. This week I will do a tutorial for a block that I call “Nesting Geese” There are four baby geese in this block. That tutorial will be ready tomorrow. This is the block.

The reason this tutorial will be on Thursday is because last week this blog suddenly had some technical issues. I immediately contacted Technical Support at the web host and they were able to get things working again. However they told me that I had 30 days to make some changes. I was able to update everything except this blog. And every time I tried, it broke the blog. I spent hours and days reading and exploring to find what was wrong with the code behind the blog to see why the update wouldn’t work. I had finally come to the conclusion that I would lose 14 years of blog posts and was beginning to accept that. And then finally, last night the light at the end of a very dark tunnel appeared, I hit upon the right code to make things work, and “voila” –everything is updated and working. Happy Happy Dance – you cannot know how good it feels to have that off my shoulders.

In the meantime, I am working on a quilt for something new for AccuQuilt that will come out next year so besides working on the blog, my time has been spent getting this project off my sewing table. Can’t wait until 2023 when you can see this.

The weather ahead for the next three days is in the upper 70’s and clear, and we should be able to dry out from the tropical storm Ian that came through last weekend. The yard looked like tossed salad from all of the limbs and leaves that came down, but other than losing the top of a maple tree and one of our dogwood trees, everything was safe. And slowly but surely we’re picking up all of the limbs and mowing through the smaller leaves and clearing everything back to normal.

Fall 2022 QAL Week #3 Depression Era Block

Today’s block is similar to one we did last January, but this time there are half square triangles on the corners. And please note that the corners are different. There are two color variations in the four half square triangles. This is important because it makes the design flow block to block in the next set of blocks. So think about those half square triangles and the smaller triangle colors for the Airplane block which is coming up next.

I’m traveling today, so won’t be able to answer questions until the late afternoon. Hope you get this block and have fun. Click on the block to get the instructions.

Block 2 Depression Era Block

Fall 2022 Quilt Along – Week # 1 Fabric Selection

The Fall 2022 Quilt Along (QAL) is here with a guide to the fabric selection. With thi.s QAL, I have added coloring pages as well as yardage amounts that will assure you have more than enough fabric to complete the quilt and  enough fabric to make up for anything that goes awry with a block.

This is a fun quilt to stitch. I ask you to please read the instructions and ask questions on the Facebook Page “AccuQuilt Qube Quilts”. This is not sponsored by AccuQuilt but is a User Group of supportive quilters.

The menu at the top of this page always has the links. Please bookmark the blog and go to that menu for printouts of the instructions.

 

Morning Star Labor Day Project

We are so excited to have a day off this week. After just one week of school, a day  off is just what the doctor ordered. The children have all come home with colds (yes colds – not covid) and have shared them with us. And while there are a thousand things on the to do list, an escape to sewing a whole new project is good medicine.

A few weeks ago the Morning Star BOB die arrived and while we made a test block, a wall hanging has been percolating in the back of my mind. After a session with EQ and drafting several options, I sat down and started a new project. Although the AccuQuilt Contemporary pattern is one of my favorites, I wanted to do something a little different but along the same themes. This is where that idea landed. Because this is a 12″ finished block, it means the “wall hanging” will be 40″ square. It will require a bigger wall than the ideas in my head.

Morning Star Quilt

Yesterday I drafted the instructions for myself and then proceeded to cut and make all the different subunits for these blocks. This is the progress:

Five different subunits for the blocks

Block 1

Block 2

The blocks are so easy to cut because there are only two different shapes – the triangles and the corners. And the triangles are set on the board so that one pass cuts 36 triangles. That’s wonderful when you need as many as 124 which was the most needed of any color triangle. Four passes cuts 144 triangles – isn’t that wonderful?

It’s a busy day ahead with a binding and label to finish, calculating yardage and instructions for the QAL as well as putting these blocks together.

Happy Labor Day to you. I hope you’re either outside enjoying the last of summer with family and friends or stitching away in your happy place.

 

Four Patch Tessellation with a Chisel

Yesterday I was playing around with a tessellation with a four patch block of squares and half square triangles. After stitching it together, it made more sense to simplify the block. There are several ways to simplify it, but in order to get the tessellation, the quilt layout has to be a “vertical half block drop” layout. After trying several different configurations using the Signature Block shape and the chisel in a couple of different configurations, a final half block configuration was chosen. And actually, if you wanted to make this as a quilt in the simplest configuration, you could use the Signature Block shape as well as the chisel shape. And, as the saying goes, “not to shoe the goose” or “plow the sand”, but here are some of the options.

This is the quilt that is a true tessellation and is the final result of these blocks. The blocks can be made several different ways.

This is the original four-patch block:

 

This is the four patch block modified by combining a square and half square triangle into the chisel shape. This block is also the half drop shape that would begin every other column on the quilt.

Twist Tessellation using Chisel Shape

This is a rectangular block using the half-drop as the right hand half of the block. This would work for those who like to make square blocks.

Twist Tessellation as Square Block Using Chisel Shape

This is the rectangular block using the signature shape in the center. However, one would have to add a half drop block on every other column of the quilt.

Twist Tessellation as Rectangular Block Using Signature Shape

I’m not sure how I would make this, but am thinking about playing around with the 4″ or 5″ Qube to make a miniature version of this just for fun. How would you make this?

A Simple Four-Patch

Sometimes we can build the most fun quilt blocks from a simple four-patch. Mixing squares and half square triangles can result in some really beautiful blocks. This is one I saw recently on a Facebook post in our AccuQuilt Qube group. It is three half square triangles and a square and is the cutest little fish ever.

When I need thinking time I make 2-1/2″ half square triangles. It’s very soothing to me to be able to sit  and stitch while I enjoy the tree-tops and greenery of the yard while sewing triangle after triangle. It results in stacks of triangles. These are some of the fish that I have made.

What will I do with them? I think a baby quilt would be perfect or some borders or even make a nine-patch from the four-patch squares. Here are some possibilities I played around with in EQ.  This was so much fun in EQ – seems like infinite possibilities.

Lots of Quilts and Quilting

Yesterday was a busy day. With the quilting I did and the schoolwork Ted did with Ezri, we didn’t eat supper until 8 pm. My work included adding borders to two quilts and quilting one of them while I added binding to a third. The one that was bound will be going to Audrey in Cincinnati.

This quilt has been folded and waiting to be quilted for several months. When I hung this quilt up for photos, I remembered that it was the second half of a quilt that was planned to be a King Size quilt and at some point I decided that none of us were going to want a pink quilt on our bed so I split it into two. The first half of it was made into a comfort quilt for donation and this half was waiting for a purpose. And when I hung it up for a photo, I realized that it looks like a quilt that was split into two. The blocks are not symmetrically arranged. At least I know that it will be used and that it will make wonderful play castles and snuggle time for a little girl and will be perfect for dragging through the house. At the same time it’s big enough for her to grow and still be covered.