Hand Pieced Quilt Along 2019-02 - the first two blocks

Through one of the Facebook groups I’m following, I found a new quilt along project I would like to do someday.
I did not plan to start this project, as I’m still working on the “Winterse hexjes” [LINK] and I already have to many projects that need to be finished (UFO’s) – the “problem” of the majority of quilters.

As always, I planned to save the notes and get back when I have time to start something new… some day…

But in this case, fate gave me an excellent reason to start a new quilt: I just heard that I will become grandmother again – and of course the new baby needs a quilt!
So this time I intend to make a baby quilt – sewn and quilted by hand.

The Quilt Along party (QAL) is hosted by Kristin Esser - Simply Everyday Handmade - and Patty Dudek - Elm Street Quilts.
It starts in January 2019 and will last for approx. 3 months. Kristin and Patty will teach step by step how to make nine (9) different basic blocks and how to assemble them to make a quilt.

Of course, Kristin and Patty will only be making small quilts:
Kristin will do 23 x 23 inch / 58 x 58 cm; Patty will do 32 x 32 inch / 81 x 81 cm.
I want mine to be bigger: approx. 80 x 120 cm / 34 x 44 inches.

The quilt blocks and layout have been revealed, the pattern looks like this (picture from Elm Street Quilts, with permission from Patty Dudek) [LINK].

Each block will be 6 x 6 inch / 15 x 15 cm (finished in the quilt), and we will be sewing one block per week for 9 weeks.

The first block (4 x a 4-patch) will not appear in my version of this quilt, so I pieced one of the sashing rows instead. I used a Frixion pen to draw the sewing lines, but I forgot that those lines disappear with heat!

So after pressing my blocks I had to draw the outer sewing lines again - I thought…
Fortunately, other participants in the Facebook groups gave an awesome tip:
The Frixion pen lines will reappear when you put your work in the freezer for a few hours.
That worked great!
However, I don’t want to put my work in the freezer after every pressing session, so from now on I will be using a regular gray pencil.

The second block is made of Half Square Triangle (HST) units.
Also, this block will not appear in the baby quilt – I will be making multiple versions of one of the other blocks though.

Patty gives great instructions on how to make the second block but I am not good at accurate cutting and drawing and therefore, I prefer another way to make them: 

• I cut finished sized templates out of old business cards, using an old (not suitable for cutting fabric) rotary cutter.
  
• I put the template on the wrong side of the fabric, eyeballing ¼ inch seam allowance from the fabric edge.
  
• With a fine pointed pencil, I draw a line on the fabric around the template this will be my sewing line.
  
• Then I cut the piece of fabric, leaving enough seam allowance all around.
  
• Pin – make sure sewing lines are lined up – and sew.
  

This way, instead of requiring a 2 7/8 inch square for two HST units, I can use a 2 ½ inch strip – the same size as required for the other one-colored squares required for this block. 

If you have an Easy Angle ruler you can lay one 2 ½ inch strip of color 1 of the block on top of one strip of color 2 (right sides together) and cut through both fabrics at the same time; that way your unit is ready for sewing already. 

The only difference with this two ways and the way in Patty’s tutorial is that you will see is that the HST will miss one of the points – but in most cases that point will be cut off anyway.

After sewing everything together, the seams need to be pressed in a sensible way. Patty has an excellent tutorial on how to spin the seams to prevent bulk in the corners. [LINK]
Just look at the before and after pictures...

This is the final result. I like it and I’m sure I can use it for some other future project. 

Do you want to learn more about making a quilt by hand? This sew-along is a great opportunity!

An overview of all my quilt related post scan be found here.

Do you want to know more about Yoors and how it works? An overview of how to's and more.
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