December Swap Blocks

Box Kite Block

My Stitchin' Sister Cindy picked the Box Kite Block from Quilter's Cache for our Q&N December Swap Block.  I had looked at this block before but had never felt inspired to make it.  I am really happy to have made this block.  Since it is just squares and half-square-triangles, it is easy to make and has many layout possibilities.  Marcia Hohm has a nice quilt layout on the last page of her block instructions. I played with the blocks and found several different layouts that I liked.

As usual, I followed my own quilty muse and used my own method to piece the units.  I used my 8 HSTs at a Time Tutorial to make the HSTs for these blocks. I cut one 10" square per each color and two white background to make two blocks. This yielded 4.5 inch trimmed HST to sew with the 4.5 inch center squares to make the 12.5 unfinished blocks.

First the fabrics ... all pieces from my stash.  I did not have enough of the yellow print to make all the blocks so I made some with the light blue dot, too.  Since these only one each of these blocks is going home to one of my swap friends and we are making scrappy quilts with them, they did not all have to be alike.

Then I cut the 4.5" center squares and 10" squares to make the 4.5" HST.

Drew on two diagonals  with 1/4" seam lines on each 10" white square paired with a colored square.

Chain sewed four times through my machine.

Cut into 8 HSTs

 

Pressed to the white side. 

 

Trimmed and squared the HSTs to 4.5"

Laid out my blocks.

Chain sewed the units together into strips
 

Quilty Supervisor #1
 

Pinned and sewed strips together, removing pins as I sewed.

 

Note: when sewing the blocks together and into strips, I found there were two combinations that lay flatter by nesting the seams, so I pressed one these seams the other way on one of the HSTs.

Quilty Supervisor #2

 

Pressed and squared the blocks. These blocks worked up to perfect 12.5 inch unfinished blocks with little or no trimming.

Blocks are ready to mail!

Katniss says she can relax now and rest up for the next project.

Our next quilty project is quilting my Tumbling Blocks Table Topper.

But first ... a concert tonight!  My Girl is playing her piccolo at the local university where she is a grad student.  Always my favorite way to spend an evening.

Have a happy quilty day!

 

:-)

Mysterious HSTs

8 x 17 = 136 HST

The new mystery quilt is still a mystery to me.

I can tell you it has 136 half square triangles in it.

I like half square triangles. They are sew versatile.

I learned a new method of making 8 HST at once.  Nice!

I like this method and will use it again, so I researched and found this nifty tutorial ... Half-Square Triangles Shortcut by Katie's Quilts and Crafts ... to help me with the math to figure out how to make these HST in all sizes.  Thanks, Katie. :)

Here are some more pictures of my process ...

Note: My 10" squares were all from a layer cake swap

and were all slightly different sizes to start and this

may have necessitated a little extra trimming.

Draw lines - point to point

 





mark seam allowance

 

 

sew just to the cutting side of the drawn line for accurate 1/4" seams

 

Note: What I call an accurate 1/4" seam, others refer to as a scant 1/4" seam. To learn more about this scant 1/4" seam, click on this tutorial by  A Quilting Life.  I personally feel that anything less than this is less than 1/4" seam and may compromise the life of the seams of my quilt. I have found that on my Janome 6600p the needle setting is 3.8 to achieve this accurate 1/4" seam.

 

 

align ruler with seam - cut on center line

 

 

cut on square for fours ... use perpendicular lines on mat

 

 

cut cross hatch for eights - use marked angles on mat

 

 

8 hsts

 

 

time to press open - press toward darker fabric

 

 

trim dog ears and square

 

 

I found I had very little waste in the end.

 

 

I like.

 

Time to sew some more mystery.

 

Have a happy quilty day!

 

:-)