May block for the Nurture Circle of do.good.stitches

Ladies we will be creating a nested star block this month for our quilt. We will be utilizing a tutorial from Dairy of a Quilter. I recently made a baby quilt using these blocks.

The color palette for this quilt is drawn from a fabric inspiration, Art Gallery Wonderful Things Canvas Aquarelle Study Wash Fabric. I created a digital palette to give a better ideas of the colors we are looking for.

  

The colors range from pale peach to punch , pale pink to raspberry, light grey blue to navy (no teal). You can also include white and low volume fabrics that feature pink, peach and blue and grey.

To start you are going to pick 4 fabrics for the block (we are making one 16 inch block). Make sure to audition your fabrics to see how the colors will play in the block. You want to verify that each fabric will stand up well against the fabrics next to it and not blend together.

Now to start cutting.

Fabric A - Center Star:  1 - 2.5" square
                                       4 - 2" squares
Fabric B - 2nd Star:       1 - 3.25" square
                                       4 - 1.5" squares
                                       4 - 3" squares
Fabric C - 3rd Star:        1 - 5.25" square 
                                       4 - 2.5" squares
                                       4 - 5" squares
Fabric D - Background: 1 - 9.25" square 
                                       4 - 4.5" squares

Use the following tutorial and fabrics highlighted in yellow to create a 4.5" star (4" finished) on the chart above.

This will give you a 4.5" star that will be used as the center of your growing block. Continue to create a star again, with the 4.5" star as the center and the instructions for the 8"x 8" block (purple highlighted fabrics).

Finally you will take the 8.5" double star and utilize it as the center for your last round (16" block), utilizing the green highlighted fabrics.

This will produce one triple star block

For the second step you will utilize the same tutorial to create 2 - 4.5" star blocks. This time using white or low volume fabrics (with grey, pink, peach, or blue) for the background and the center star should be pink, peach or blue-grey.

Your finished blocks should look something like this.

Please ship to the address listed in the email. Thanks Dhia

All you need is love - Feb Nurture Circle - Do.Good.Stitches

This month I am the quilter this month for the Nurture circle of Do.Good.Stitches. I signed up and had a million ideas. For some reason I had it stuck in my head that I was the quilter in March. I think it is because we are going to Seattle in March and I decided to sign up for another month since I would be traveling. Thankfully Louise emailed me to remind me to get off my bun and plan a quilt. I have a hearty folder of potential quilts saved as most of us do. I decided since it was February and Valentines Day is around the corner  we should but together some blocks filled with L - O - V - E.

So this month we will be making an assortment of heart blocks. All blocks will be made of your choice of Red, Pink and White/Low volume Fabrics. For the first block I would like everyone make one of the following blocks.

Heart A - The heart from Michael Millers Cupid's Arrow quilt.

To make Heart A you will need to cut 

(2) 3.5" background squares

(4) 4" background squares

(10) 4" heart fabric squares

You can make your heart the colored portion of the block or the background can be the colored portion. Let your imagination run wild.

Draw a diagonal line on the back of each of your 4 - 4" background squares and 3 - 4" heart squares.

Match one 4" background square with one of your 4" unmarked heart squares.

Sew 1/4" to each side of your diagonal line

Match one marked 4" heart square with one of your unmarked heart squares

Sew 1/4" to each side of your diagonal line

You should now have 7 squares sewn together

Cut along the diagonal line to separate into half square triangles.

Press toward the darker fabric in each HST and trim to 3.5"

Lay out your block as pictured

Sew together and alternate the direction that you are pressing your seams. The final block should finish at 12.5"

OR

Heart B - The "Be good to your heart" block by Amy Smart from Diary of a quilter

Amy has great directions on her blog so I won't reinvent the wheel. Pick any three fabrics you would like (red, pink, white/low volume) Make sure there is good contrast between the fabrics you choose so the hearts pop. Alternate the directions you press your seams. The block will finish at 12.5"

AND

Heart C - Everyone will make some simple heart blocks from Allison @ CluckCluckSew

Directions here

Multiple size measurements here

Please make (2) 6" blocks and (3) 4" blocks. 

Again choose any combination of red/pink/low volume fabrics.

Any questions let me know!!

October blocks Nurture circle, do.good.stitches

A quick post of my October blocks while one baby is sleeping and the other is with daddy.

This month we are doing a block with a modified half square triangle. Little nip of the corner and a smidge of grey is added. I don't think I am giving justice to the design so I'll go right to the pictures. 

The colors selected were a light yellow,  burnt orange and a coral. I did the best to find close colors in my stash. The request was for solids or prints that read as a solid. My stash is definitely lacking solids, and also orange fabric. So the chance of me having a solid orange wasn't very good!

This is our last quilt this year. It has a fresh summery feel which is appreciated as the days get shorter and cooler. 

On an unrelated not we went to trunk or treat this Sunday and the babies seemed to enjoy it. And we gave away most of the candy so I won't be eating 6 bags of sugar!

One wild flamingo (Mirabelle-15 months) and one confused monster (Abigail-2.5 Months)

Getting the blocks off in the mail. Almost time for my maternity leave to be over :(

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!!!

Nurture circle quilts finally done!!!

I have finally finished the two quilts for the Nurture circle of Do.Good.Stitches.

I have a couple good reasons for why these are so late. In August I had a baby girl named Abigail Grace. She is a cute distraction that has been sucking up most of my free time and sleep. She is 7 weeks old now and starting to sleep a little better. Fingers crossed!!!

My other daughter Mirabelle turned one in July and has learned to walk and is running a muck.

The other thing that has been taking up my time is this crunchy masterpiece that we bought at the end of July. It needs many things and we are in the process of tearing up the inside.

And we are also finishing up a kitchen remodel in the house we are living in. Here is the awesome back splash we put in. God willing we will get this kitchen done soon. We started it back in 2015 when before Mirabelle was born!!!

In March we did this block by Patch the Giraffe called Picnic Pinwheel. I blogged about it here. I am not sure what about this quilt that caused me such trouble. But it seemed like I hit so many snags on this one. First I cut the backing wrong, so I had to piece it. Not a big snag but annoying to have an extra seam. Then I quilted it and bound it and right before I tossed it in the wash I noticed that there was a HUGE pucker. I tried to smooth it out but it was just too big. So in the end I had to unstitch oh so much of the quilt and quilt it again. Let me tell you that unquilting is much more time consuming than quilting. Especially when  you have the helping hands of a toddler. 

For the backing I used cross stitch in teal by Amanda Jean Nyberg of Crazy Mom Quilts.

For the May quilt I put together a scrap square that I called Hollywood Squares. I blogged about it here. This one was less trouble but I was holding onto it so I could mail both quilts together. 

For the backing I used a combination of solid Kona fabric in a dark teal (glacier) and a complimentary fabric that I dug out deep from my stash.

Both of these quilts are on the way to covered in love, the charity that we quilt for. I am linking up to crazy mom quilts Finish it up Friday,

September Do.GoodStitches Nurture Circle

This month our circle is following this tutorial for Crosscut Blocks. The tutorial can be found here. I started the blocks using the tutorial and cut the background for the first three blocks. As it turned out they didn't mention in the tutorial that you needed to cut the background fabric larger than 9.5 inches to end up with a 9.5 inch block in the end. So my first three were cut too small. However this block has some overages so I was able to save the blocks. I ended up cutting my next three larger and then cutting down the blocks to 8.75" which was the ending size of the smallest blocks. 

After the first step you sew the blocks together and then cut out 12 5.5" blocks. I ended up slicing the 1st stage fabric into 5.5" strips and then cutting 3 squares from each strip. Once you have your 12 blocks then you sew then into 3 10.5" blocks. Here is how my final squares turned out. 

I don't know how I feel about this block. I like a more patterned traditional block. The random improv blocks always make me a little twitchy. I am interested to see this come together. 

August Blocks for the Nurture Circle

So I am coming down to the wire on my pregnancy. I am set to have a c-section in 8 days. I may not last that long if my blood pressure doesn't play nice. I have been trying to finish up sewing projects before the baby comes. Unfortunately being pregnant in the heat of the summer also makes you tired and more likely to nap more than sew. 

This month for the nurture circle of Do.Good.Stitches we were tasked with paper pieced kaleidoscope blocks. You can find out more details at the original post here. I was motivated to get them done before baby time. I am still sadly behind on quilting the march quilt for the circle. I have it on my list of things to do. Fingers crossed that it will be the next thing I get finished. 

These blocks are a good way to eat up scraps. I am tempted to make a quilt of them to empty some of my scrap bin. On  the downside it takes some fine tuning to get the two halves lined up. I had some issues with the dark teal and red block working out the kinks. I had to take them apart a few times and that is something that paper pieced blocks do not appreciate. 

I am finished and here is what I came up with. The request was for solids for the center points and low volume for the background.