Follow Your Heart: Crosstown

Today is the first day of our Follow Your Heart Quilt Along! I am so excited to get started on this with all of you. If you have not yet bought the book and picked out your fabrics it is definitely not too late to do so. We have several books in stock and we always have fabric available to purchase in our shop. Click on the "follow your heart: tag at the bottom of the post and the fabric requirements post should pop up for you with all that information. 

Just a couple little notes before I get into this weeks block. Test your seam allowance before starting, as per instructions on page 3. If you do need to make any changes in your needle placement I suggest you make note of it in your book, or on a slip of paper that you can keep in your book. Also when I am doing quilts that will not be finished for quite some time, like Block of the Months or Quilt Alongs, I tend to shorten my stitch length while sewing to prevent any unravelling of stitches in the blocks. I usually shorten to about a 2.0 length on my Bernina. 

The first block we are making is called Crosstown and is on page 10 in your book. The block is simple to piece and the instructions are well written and easy to follow.  To construct the block you will need a dark print, a light print and some background fabric. You will want a good contrast between the light and dark prints so that the pattern doesn't blend together. 

To trim the block I used a square ruler and put the diagonal line down the center of the dark strip, trimmed, rotated the block and did it again. 

For my block I used a light and a dark purple.

Carrie is also quilting along and she is using the new Sweetwater Collecton Printshop, and is pulling out the black prints to use as her assorted backgrounds, For this block she decided to use two different colors instead of a dark and light and I think it looks really good. 

Have fun making your blocks and remember to post a picture to our Facebook Group so we can all see your blocks.  Kayla