Adventures in Quilting - 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - October 2018 - Block 4

Quilter's Haven 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - October 2018

Sew Simple Northern Lights Sampler

One Spinning Wheel Block

Three Small Pinwheel Blocks

The first two months included just one large block, the third month included one large and two small, and this month includes one large block and three small ones. You can see kind of how the smaller blocks will work together in each corner of the finished quilt by looking at the completed example to the right of this month's blocks.

Let's get this out in the open first ... I am very apprehensive about this yellow. It is SO bright. It kind
of hurts my eyes a bit to look at it. You may just think it is formatting on the photo, but no. It really is that bright. I am hoping that paired with my lighter, cream background it will be less glaring.

We receive our fabrics and instructions on the third Thursday of each month, so it's only been just under a week since I received the October 2018 set. But, I know that with Halloween quickly followed by a four day trip out of town, my after work time is going to be little and precious. I've really been working hard to finish these early, and I haven't done too badly at it.

My lovely wife who can cut so much straighter than I can helped me cut out my background pieces, so I was able to get started on the little blocks. I have the green one completed using the pop seam technique shown in the video by Adrienne Reid on my last post. It turned out beautifully. I have all of the pieces cut, pressed, and arranged for the fuchsia and red blocks so that I can finish those tonight.

Then, I will just have the larger 15.5" yellow block to complete on Thursday or Friday. We have Halloween in a few days, and we will be hosting an all day game at our house the following weekend, so prep and cleaning have to be top priority. That means that sadly my sewing stuff will have to packed away and moved out of the living room Don't judge! The living room is warmer and has better lighting than my current sewing room setup. I'm working on improving that. The sewing room is a Winter project.

I will post up new images of the finished smaller blocks and the hopefully less of an eye-sore yellow block when I finish those.

I've added a photo to the right of all three of the finished smaller blocks, and I added a picture farther above of the finished larger yellow block. The yellow is still a bit of an eye-sore to me, but I do not dislike it against the cream background as much as against the black background on the class sample.

Adventures in Quilting - 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - September 2018 - Block 3

Quilter's Haven 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - September 2018

Sew Simple Northern Lights Sampler

One Spinning Wheel Block

Two Small Pinwheel Blocks

Month three of my Block of the Month adventure mixes it up a bit compared with the previous two months. Instead of just one 15 inch block, we will be responsible for one 15 inch block (the green block pictured above) and two smaller 6.5 inch blocks (the purple and light blue blocks above). 

This month, the instructor also introduced a different way to do the seams for designs like the pinwheel where multiple seams converge together. She suggested that instead of pressing the seams open, we should press them flat in alternating directions so that they fan out together in a flatter, stronger intersection. I had never sewn and pressed a seam like this, but the theory made sense. It's always good to add new skills to the repertoire.

The results? It is not as easy as it looks. I watched a lot of videos on popping / twisting seams to achieve flatter and less bulky quilt blocks. The standard blocks, it appears pretty straight forward, and I will probably end up using that technique for future blocks. There is a really good video on YouTube by Adrienne Reid that goes through the process step by step.

When it comes to twisting or popping seams for pinwheel blocks, it's a slightly different technique that actually involves breaking some of the seams after you sew the block together to achieve the affect shown in the image to the right. None of the videos I watched really show the process up close. I want to actually "see" what happens when the stitches are broken. I ended up just pressing my seams open on my 6.5" pinwheels because I could not get the seam work the way that it should. I will have to keep trying on scrap material until I figure it out. I am sure that it is going to be something simple that creates that Aha! moment for me, and then everything will work.

I do not think they turned out too poorly when all was said and done. I love the contrast of the bright purple and turquoise with the cream background. Along with the two 6.5" blocks, this month also included a 15.5" block similar to the one completed during the last two monthly installments. It has the same edging as those two blocks, but the center incorporates a pinwheel as well as a thin separating flashing. It has a blue green and spring green mingled batik as the contrasting fabric. I am not quite done with it yet, but I will post a picture of the center portion of it below. I just need to finish the border. It should be the easiest part considering I've done the same border on two other blocks, right? Not when you realize three-fourths of the way through that you've cut the center sections of each side a half inch too small. Many Grrrs were voiced. I was very frustrated with myself. Read, read, read! And then read again before actually cutting. And then measure and read again before actually sewing anything. So ... it was rip, rip, rip and re-cut new pieces. Luckily I will be able to use the mis-cut pieces on October's BOM blocks that call for 2.5" squares.

So here (to the left) is my mostly finished 15.5" block and last piece of the September 2018 Northern Lights BOM. You can see the point where the pinwheel slices meet is a bit lumpy. This is the square that I tested out the seam twisting technique on. The other two smaller pinwheels that I pressed the seams open are flat, but this one doesn't look as nice. I may tweak it a bit still before I complete the border around the edge. Better to do it now than after when I would have to take apart even more of the finished block. I will add the final picture when I finish this one up.






And below is the finished block. I'm not 100% happy with the little border. I may end up taking it apart to reset that eventually. We will see how much it bugs me as I look at it on my wall over the next several months.