Welcome to another Month in our Bonnie and Camille Quilt Bee. We have reached Month 8 and we need to make a total of 3 blocks this time. They go together pretty quickly, I did all 3 of mine in a couple hours this past Saturday morning.
We need to make the Home Again Block on page 110, the Lighthearted Block on page 112 and the Neighborhood Block on page 114.
Home Again. I love house blocks so I was thrilled that there was one in this quilt. I have a couple tips for you for this block.
First if using directional fabric for the windows, be sure to pay attention when cutting so that they all go the same way when in the block. O and Q should both be the same height when cutting, and the widths will be different.
When I have a lot of piecing in a section and have to add borders at the end I like to wait to cut those until I have the center done, than I can adjust the borders if needed. In this block you may want to cut your "B" pieces a little wider than mentioned, and than after you sew them onto the center section, trim the block to the correct size than add the roof part. This will ensure you don't need to stretch anything.
When making the shrubs pay careful attention to what edges you place the little squares and double check before adding the next fabrics that you have them oriented the right way. Otherwise you may end up with some upside down bushes outside your home.
I actually ended up making this block twice. I chose some fairly muted colors for some of my sections the first time and was not happy with the way it turned out, so I went much brighter the second time.
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First attempt, that I didn't even finish all the way, a little dull compared to the other blocks I have been making
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Lighthearted Block. Heart Blocks are another of my favorites to make, so this was a fun month for me. And this heart was really quick to make.
6 different prints are needed, and I was able to make that work with my Red Fabric so that is the color I chose. One of my pieces was actually a few inches shorter than it was supposed to be, but because of how the block was constructed I was able to make it work anyways. I just used it as my bottom strip and centered it with the fabric above it.
Neighborhood Block.
For this block be sure to pay attention to the first step when sewing. You need to sew on the drawn line to make the HST. This is different than how we have done the others in this pattern.
Other than that it's just a bunch of Flip and Stitch Corners and some assembly of the units to make the block. I suggest laying out all the units before sewing them together so that you get the colors arranged how you want them. I also do not like pressing seams open so I will post a picture of how I pressed my seams so they all nest. It is just personal preference, and I use a really hot iron and don't like burning my fingertips.
That is it for this month. Here are all my blocks so far!
Have you made any of the other quilts in this book yet? Two of the blocks we need to make this month are used for other patterns in the book too. The Lighthearted Block is repeated several times to make the You Have My Heart Quilt on page 8. And the Neighborhood Block is used together with the Criss Cross Block from Month 3 to make the Legacy Quilt on page 12.