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Block of the Week – Finish it Up!

Hi everyone! We made it to the end! I really hope you enjoyed making these blocks and are ready to use them to make a quilt. The options I will provide are three different ones that I came up with. However, I think the possibilities are endless. Also, at the end of this post, the winner of the fat quarter pack will be announced. So let’s get started!

Quilt Options

There are options here for a large wall hanging, a medium size throw and a larger lap quilt. Here’s how they look:

The wall hanging (left) is 46 x 46″. It can also be used as a large table topper. The throw (center) is 58 x 66″ and the lap quilt (right) is 58 x 71″. Find the instructions for these patterns here: 2024 Block of the Week Finishing.

Choose the one you like and have fun! 

On Point Settings

Since the last option of finishing these blocks is an on point setting, I decided to cover my tips on making an on point quilt. Hopefully this will be a help to you if you decide to make this type of quilt in the future. For the BOW pattern, I have already figured the size setting triangles.

Unlike quilts made from blocks that are set normally, on point block quilts need what are called setting triangles. Setting triangles are cut from squares. There are side triangles and end triangles. Here’s a graphic of what these setting triangles look like:

When  you have your blocks ready for the quilt, there are now calculations to do to for these triangles so you can figure the size squares you need to cut them from. So here they are:

Side Triangles –  You take the finished size of your block x 1.414, then add 1 1/4″ to that number. For example, if your finished block is 6″, here is how the formula works:

6″ x 1.414 = 8.48″ (round this up to the nearest 1/8″ to 8.5″)
8.5″ + 1 1/4″ = 9 3/4″ square needed.

This square is then cut diagonally twice for 4 quarter-square triangles. For the above quilt, there are 12 side triangles, so you will need three 9 3/4″ squares:

End Triangles –  You take the finished size of your block/(divided by) 1.414, then add 7/8″ to that number. Example:

6/1.414 = 4.243 (round this up to the nearest 1/8″ to 4.25
4.25 + 7/8 = 5 1/8″ square needed.

 This square is then cut diagonally once for 2 half-square triangles. You need 4 end triangles, so you will need two 5 1/8″ squares:

Block Lay Out and Stitching – So now that you have your triangles cut, it’s time to lay out the blocks and the triangles so you can stitch together the quilt top. A large floor space or a design wall comes in handy here. Here’s how I put together a BOW on point quilt 3 years ago to refresh your memory (this sample has pieced setting triangles, but piecing the top together uses the same concepts):

I like to piece the end caps, as I call them, on the upper left and lower right first (where I am pointing in the photos below):

I join the side triangles to the block first, then I join the end triangle. I use a ruler to make sure I have the point of the end triangle in the center of the block before stitching (photo below right). This assures me that my end piece will be centered evenly to create a end cap “triangle”.

Then, all the other rows are stitched together diagonally (left photo, below) and then those rows are joined for the quilt top center.

If you have carefully matched up the seams of the rows when piecing, you will have a nice square quilt top (or rectangular if you are doing a pattern for a rectangular quilt). Notice the triangle points still visible in the photo on the right? Those can now be trimmed off if you like.

Block of the Week Blog Winner!

Now, the moment you’ve been waiting for… the winner of the fat quarter pack is:

Mari-Ann! I will be sending out an e-mai to you confirming the win. Congrats!!!

I hope you enjoyed this sew-along. I know I had fun working on it. Like I said last week, once I get my hand able to cut fabric again, I will put together one of these options. Meanwhile, I am working on next year’s block of the month pattern. Hopefully I have that to share sometime in December.

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

2024 Block of the Week – Block 7

Oh my! Here we are already at block 7! This BOW sew along has gone so fast. I hope you are enjoying them. If you are just joining us, here’s a link to last week’s block 6 post. From there you can get links to the previous posts as you work your way through.

If you are new to the BOW, we are piecing blocks that I have chosen that reflect my love for traditional quilt blocks. Some of these blocks date all the way back to the 19th century! I try to give you a bit of history on the block itself and share some tips to help you stitch it up. So let’s get started.

Block of the Week

Block 7:

The name of this block is Paradox. Kind of an interesting “twisty” design to this one. You can find the instructions for this block here: 2024 BOW Block 7.

A little block history. This is a distinct style of block that has its origins in the Amish community in the late 19th century. Amish women were very creative and innovative in designing a new style of block that was not seen in other quilter’s work. Traditional blocks from this time were a bit more basic whereas the Paradox block has a really intricate design, even though they used the same geometric pieces like half-square and quarter-square triangles and squares.

There is an exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) called Pattern and Paradox: The Quilts of Amish Women that contains about 50 quilts from about 1880 to 1950. There is also a book by Janneken Smucker, a historian and scholar of Amish quilts and culture. Sounds like a really interesting book! The SAAM actually has the largest collection of Amish quilts than any other museum. Find more information from the Smithsonian here.

Tips of the Week – Choosing color prints.

This block has 4 different color prints so I thought I would go over some of my tips for choosing a group of color prints when you are planning a quilt or even just a block.

Color Theory  – Just a Bit!

Color: Before you shop for fabric, dig out this little contraption and let’s have a lesson:

You probably recognize the color wheel from grade school art class. We learned about the primary colors of red, yellow and blue. From those colors, all the other colors are created. That’s why they’re called “primary” colors.  

The first group of colors created by combining primary colors are called secondary colors. These are orange (from red and yellow), green (from blue and yellow) and violet (from blue and red).

The color wheel can help you with getting the right contrast in your quilt in addition to picking out fabric colors. Notice the closer that colors to each other are on the wheel, the less contrast between them. The most contrast is achieved with colors that are farther away from each other. This is where complimentary colors come in. A color that is opposite of another on the wheel provides the most contrast and is called complimentary. For example: red and green are across from each other so they are considered complimentary and there is high contrast between them.

Shade, Tone & Tint: Knowing the difference between shade, tone and tint and how that effects the contrast between your fabrics can go a long way in helping you choose fabrics.

  • Shade is taking the pure color, for instance blue, and adding black to it to make it darker, for a dark blue.
  • Tint is taking the pure blue and adding white to make it lighter, making a light blue.
  • Tone is adding grey to a pure color to make it less intense. Most colors around us in the world are tones of pure color.

Another way contrast can be achieved is by combining “warm” and “cool” colors or have blocks that alternate between warm and cool colors throughout a quilt.

Summing it up… if you want a quiet, muted quilt, choose colors close to each other on the wheel, with the same shades, tints or tones. If you want a high contrast quilt, choose colors far away from each other on the wheel, with different shades, tints or tones. Of course there are a lot of complete books on color theory and this is just a tiny snippet of information. If you are interested in a more in depth explanation, you can surely find some of these books at the library or online.

Using Color Theory in Choosing Fabrics

So here’s a real world example of some of what I talked about above.

One way contrast is achieved is by considering the shades and tints of the each color you choose. Tint is when white is added to a color to make it lighter and shade is when black is added to a color to make it darker. For example,

pink is a tint of red where maroon is a shade of red.

See the difference in these fabrics? They’re all the same base color, red, but when used in a quilt, they will each make it look a bit different.

Here’s another example. Pick out fabrics you would like to use in your quilt and stack them up like these fat quarters I used below:

There is not much contrast between these fabric because they are all close to the same shade within their color family. But now, in the photo below, I have switched out two of the fabrics for fabrics tinted lighter than the originals.

The above are all cool colors as well and close to each other on the color wheel. Look what happens when I add in some complimentary colors from the warm side:

Removing the brown and purple fabrics and adding the gold and red fabrics makes the stack of fabrics more vibrant.

So keep these tips in mind when choosing fabrics for this block. Do you want a certain portion of it to “jump out” more. That’s the trick for color. You can pick out an element of the block and use color to emphasize it if you want. Or…. you can play and make it scrappy!

I added a touch of black again in this block to emphasize a shoofly design in the center. 

Well, that’s it for this week! Make sure to leave a comment or ask a question below and be entered into the drawing for the fat quarter pack:

The drawing will be the week after this sew along ends. Good luck and see you next week!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

2024 Block of the Week – Block 6

Welcome back to the BOW! Before I introduce block 6, I have heard from some participants that you were having a bit of trouble piecing block 4. Because of this, I have written up an alternate piecing plan for block 4 that you can find here. I think you will find this a simpler way to piece the block. Hope that helps!

Now onto this week’s post. If you are just joining the BOW sew along, here’s a link to last weeks post: Block 5. If you click that link, it will take you to the block 5 blog post from last week with a link to block 4, which will lead you to the other block links. Like for the last 5 blocks, this week’s block has traditional roots. I love using traditional blocks to keep them going even in today’s quilts. So let’s go!

Block of the Week

Block 6:

The name of this block is Old Maid’s Puzzle. Oh look… it has half-square triangle squares! Don’t you love those by now? For the block instructions, go here: 2024 BOW Block 6.

A little block history. Like a lot of traditional blocks, this one has a lot of alternate names. A few of them are: Jacks on Six, Double X and Cat’s Cradle. It was published as Old Maid’s Puzzle in an 1895 issue of American Farmer’s Magazine. They had a section of the magazine called “The Farm House” which was the section written for the ladies. You can also find this block design in Amish quilts under the name of Bachelor’s History. Hmmm… wouldn’t be fun to go back in time to ask these women how they came up with these various block names? It was popularized as Old Maid’s Puzzle by Nancy Cabot in the Chicago Tribune in the 1930s.

Tip of the Week

This week, I want to talk about fabrics and directional prints. In scrap quilts when I am using a lot of different fabrics in each block, I don’t often pay attention to which direction a print is going. However, if you are only using a few fabrics in a block or quilt, you might want to pay attention. Here’s some tips on this.

Directional Prints

First, what is a directional print? A fabric has a directional print, sometimes referred to as a “one-way” print, when there is a clear up or down to the pattern on the fabric. Here are a couple of examples of that.

As you can see above, the pattern goes in one direction. It’s especially evident in the fabric on the left. Compare these fabrics to the ones below.

The design on the above fabrics are considered not directional because which ever way you turn the fabric, it looks the same. You can see it clearly in the fabric on the right. The “starburst” design is symmetrical and looks the same no matter which direction you turn it.

There can be one-way, two-way, three-way and even four-way directional print designs. If I use a directional fabric and want the design to all go in the same direction within the block, I try to stick with a directional fabric that isn’t too complicated.

Using Directional Prints

Since this block uses a lot of HSTs, I will cover how to use directional prints when making HSTs, if  you want them to be uniform.

Below are the pieces to make 4 HSTs. Here’s the traditional technique not considering directional prints.

Lay them out as shown and then lay the tan print face down on the color print. Stitch diagonally a scant 1/4″ on each side of the diagonal center line beginning from the same direction on both square sets (see where my finger is pointing).

Once you cut the units apart and press open you will get 4 HSTs where, no matter how they are arranged, the directional tan print will not go in the same direction. 

Now, here’s what you do if you want the tan fabric directional print to go in the same direction in the unit, follow the above steps, BUT stitch each set of squares starting in the opposite corner (see where my finger is pointing in last two photos).

Once you stitch the seams (first photo), cut the units apart, press and arrange them in the pinwheel, the directional print is all moving in the same direction.

Yay! If you keep rearranging them, you’ll notice the directional print always goes in the same direction.

So with a bit of planning you can get all your directional prints in a block going in the same direction, if that’s something you want. Like I said earlier, if you’re making a scrap quilt and using a lot of different fabrics for a block, you may not care.

Make it Scrappy!

Here’s a scrappy version of the block if you are doing scrappy.

Remember to comment or ask questions below to be entered into a drawing for the fat quarter pack below:

That’s it until  next week!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

2024 Block of the Week – Block 5

Time to move on to the 5th block in this sew along. I hope you are having fun and enjoying some of my tips and techniques! If you are just joining the fun, you can find the post for block 4 here. That post will lead you to links for blocks 1, 2 and 3 as well. The purpose of this sew along is to introduce you to blocks with traditional roots that you may not have thought of making. It’s always fun to learn a new block! So on we go…

Block of the Week

Here is Block 5:

This block is called Starshine and is a little more straight forward than last week’s. The piecing a bit simpler. For the pattern go here: 2024 BOW Block 5.

A little block history.  This is a traditional block that is built upon the base of a center star. We learned  that star pattern has many names like Evening Star, Ohio Star, Variable Star… etc. So this block starts with a star in the center and has borders added so the “shine” radiates out. That’s how it got the name Starshine.

Since I could not find a lot of history on this exact block, lets delve into why the star is a design used often in quilting. The star quilt block has roots in the Native American tribes. Native women often adapted star designs with the colors of their tribe to represent the morning star or a celestial guiding light. In the 1800s, to many women settlers, star blocks represented the star of Bethlehem and the stars that guided them westward to their new homes.

Tips of the Week

Stitch & Flip. We covered a form of this when making flying geese a few weeks ago, but the center of this star block has a motif that is created by accurately performing the stitch & flip method.

Stitch & flip usually entails placing a smaller square on a larger square or block, stitching a bias seam and then pressing it open. Below, I’ll show only doing one side, but you can do two diagonally opposite corners of a square at a time to make the piecing go quicker.

As shown in the photos above, after drawing the diagonal line on the smaller square it’s important to line up its edges with the edges of the larger square. The most important step, at least for me, it to pin to keep the squares from shifting out of alignment while stitching.

Stitch on the line you have drawn and then, instead of instantly cutting off the excess fabric in the seam allowance, first finger press open the smaller square and measure the unit. In this block, the larger square you start with measures 4 1/2 x 4 1/2″. When you measure after adding the smaller square, the unit needs to still measure 4 1/2 x 4 1/2″ and still be square.

My examples above are from a project where the larger square was 2 1/2″. But the concept is the same. And like I said, you can stitch a square to the lower left corner at the same time since those squares will not interfere with each other and make the center unit piecing for this block go quicker.

No-line Stitch & Flip. You can do stitch & flip without drawing a line on your squares. It’s a time saver if you prepare your sewing machine in advance. Here’s some steps on how to do that. Photos first:

First, place a tape measure (above left photo – I recommend a tape measure that is 1/2″ wide) under the needle and put the needle down at the “0” line. Place a piece of painter’s tape right at that point on your throat plate and sewing machine table aligned with the “0” on the tape.

Then (middle photo) move the tape measure around (still under the needle). If you are using a 1/2″ wide tape as recommended, the edge will be exactly aligned with the 1/4″ line on your throat plate and with the edge of your 1/4″ foot (last photo). Be sure it is exactly 1/4″ then draw a line on the painter’s tape. This acts to extend the 1/4″ mark from your throat plate. No more eyeballing a seam!

Now, here’s how it works in action.

The photo above shows the point of the smaller square lined up with the left edge of the painter’s tape. Keep that lined up as you stitch the seam. Then follow the same steps above for those units with the drawn line. This is the position you use when you are doing stitch & flip.

As an aside, the line you drew into the tape is the one you use when stitching squares for HSTs. If you line up the point of your matched squares for the HSTS with the drawn tape line, your stitch line will be a 1/4″ to the side of the point, which is where you want it to be. When you do that on each side, you can then cut apart the unit in the center and have two accurate HSTs.

Important final tip: Because these seams are bias seams, do not pull the unit through your machine as you are stitching. This is a good rule for any seam, but especially bias seams because the fabric can be stretched severely out of shape by doing this and then your unit will not measure correctly. And be extra careful if you have to “un-sew” a seam for the same reason. The fabric can stretch out of shape with too much pulling.

Make it Scrappy!

Notice how I added some black in some areas to make the star design “pop”?

Remember to comment or ask questions below to be entered into a drawing for the fat quarter pack below:

That’s it for this week! Until next week,

Happy Quilting!
Deanne