Midnight Clear Block of the Month: Block 1

Today is the first day of the Midnight Clear Block of the Month, so Carrie is here to share her block 1's, and her tips and tricks for making them easier. 

For this week we are making 2 block 1's. When I first opened my book to block 1 I was a bit intimidated by the look of the block, but the pattern is broken down really well. and you just have to make 3 components and then piece them together as a 9 patch. 

First for color placement. I followed the color placement exactly as they have it in the pattern. I just think that this gave the block a really cool effect, you could easily switch them up if you wanted to though. 

For cutting. Anytime there is an 1/8th measurement I round up, and trim later. That is what I did here as well. I cut 3" instead of 2 7/8"s so that after I piece the half square triangles I have more room to square them up. For the rest of the pieces I cut as the pattern said and then labeled them with my Alphabitties to keep them straight. 

Now for making the half square triangles. I don't know about you, but whenever I mark a line down the center I have a tendency to sew on the line instead of on either side. With my Creative Grids Marking Tool I can easily draw 1/4" on either side of the center and then sew on the line. If you haven't already noticed I am a fan of tools, so to square my half square triangles, I used my Creative Grids 4-in-1 Half Square Triangle Trim Tool. All markings on this tool are in finished sizes, so I put the 2" line on my seam and squared them up. Then you simply make the 4-patch Units. 

For the Pinwheel unit I followed the same steps as above to create my Half Square Triangles and then again simply assembled my 4 Patch Units.

The next unit is a Square in a Square block. To make these I put my red square down, then placed my white square and my black square in opposite corners. I used my Folded Corner Clipper to help me make these flip and stitch corners and this worked really well for me. Do this again with the other white square and green square. 

 

Now all that is left is assembling your units into blocks and you are finished. 

Have fun sewing up your blocks, I will be back with block 2 on September 3rd. 

Half Square Triangles: Finishing plus the Next Series

Happy Thursday.
We did the final video of our Half Square Triangles today on Facebook Live and Esther was able to show off her finished quilt. In the last week she put together all the remaining blocks, assembled the top, quilted it and bound it by hand!
In my opinion the resulting quilt is beautiful, and it is going to look great in her bedroom.
In the video today, Esther pointed out her borders, which she made with extra Half Square Triangle Units randomly sewn into length of the borders, to create a unique and very fun border.
Just as a little note, she made 20 blocks, and used 2" sashing and corner stones. Her outer border is 4.5" squares.
She bound her quilt in a bias stripe and it turned out so pretty.
Esther also introduced the next series that she will be doing. We will be working with the Log Cabin Rulers from Creative Grids for the next series.
 It will start next week Thursday, May 7, and we will once again do the videos on Facebook Live at 1pm. We love the interaction in these videos and hope that you will continue to ask questions and comment on them.
For the Log Cabin Blocks it is really hard to give fabric requirements as it really depends on the size of block and quilt that you will be making. But for an idea, for the 8" Log Cabin Block you can make one block with 1 -- 2"x40" strip of a light fabric and 1-- 2"x40" strip of a dark fabric. Obviously you will probably want more than just two fabrics per block but that should give you a rough idea. So if you want to make a quilt that measures 56"x64" that would be an 56 blocks total, so you would need 56 strips of light and 56 strips of dark plus your center squares which are cut at 2.5".
Esther has one quilt with lights and darks on the go as well as one that has no set dark and light sections but it just colorful and fun. So do whatever suits you.
You will also need the ruler in the size you prefer. It is available in a 4", 6" and 8" finished size and there is also one that does both the 6" and 12". The 6" and 8" have been the most popular size, although I love using my 4" to make minis.
You can purchase the rulers here.
Have a great weekend. I will be spending mine celebrating my baby's 2nd Birthday! Honestly I cannot believe he is going to 2 tomorrow. He is such a fun little dude, and keeps all of us in stitches with his antics. He is quite good at getting anyone to do his bidding, and though he gets into a lot of trouble his smile is too cute for anyone to be upset with him.
Kayla

Half Square Triangles: Block Layouts

Happy Thursday! This week has finally felt like spring for several days in a row rather than just a single day, and I am loving it. My boys have been outside for the majority of the week, and we even had a couple fires in the evenings. 

At the shop it has been really busy. We spend the morning packaging up orders that came through overnight and answering phone calls. The afternoon is spent putting orders outside, packaging more orders and tidying up. Carrie has been going to post office every day to ship out orders too. So thank you everyone for your continued support. 

Esther and I plan to do groceries tomorrow morning for the Food Bank from the Giving Back promotion, we had a lot of orders come through so thank you again!

Today on our Facebook Live Esther showed off some different Block Layouts using 16 half square triangles in each block. It really is unbelievable how many different ways you can arrange the units. 

A lot of the blocks she made today are from Sherri at A Quilting Life who did a Mystery Block of The Month in 2019. Here is a link if you would like to download all those patterns (2019 Mystery BOM A Quilting Life). 

If you send an email to esther@chickenfeedquilts.com she can also provide you with another layout sheet of blocks. 

A great tip to ensure that you all the units facing the correct direction is to take a step back and look at it, or to take a photo on your phone and look at it that way. 

Esther also mentioned sashing in the video. Since her blocks are measuring 16.5" unfinished she cut her sashing strips at 2.5"x16.5", and put one strip between each block. She will also make sashing rows to go between each row of blocks, in these rows she will use 5 sashing strips each measuring 2.5"x16.5" and put a cornerstone (2.5" square) between each strip. These cornerstones will help greatly when sewing the rows together as they give you the ability to nest seams, which will help all your blocks line up nicely in your quilt when it is finished. 

Have fun making your blocks and tag us in your photos so we can see them too. 

Esther hopes to have her quilt top finished for next weeks video!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Kayla

Half Square Triangle: Making the units

Happy Thursday, and what beautiful weather today! I for one decided to let my boys skip out on the majority of schoolwork today and had them play outside instead. All of us loved the change, and the sunshine and fresh air felt so good! Were you able to get outside at all?
Esther and I also filmed the next section of the Half Square Triangle Series. We did it live on Facebook, and the video has been posted to our feed so it is still available to watch on our page, Chicken Feed Quilts.
Basically Esther went over how to construct the Half Square Triangle Unit and showed a couple layouts as well.
If you prefer learning by reading and pictures rather than video, here are some written instructions.
The first step is to draw 2 diagonal lines on the wrong side of your background square. 
Next stack a print and a background square right sides together ans sew a 1/4" on each side of both lines, so you should have 4 stitch lines total that run across the diagonal. I sewed these ones in red so you can see the stitching.







After the lines are sewn you cut the square in half in both directions at the 5" mark, and cut on each diagonal as well.
Next step is to trim using the 4-in-1 Half Square Triangle Ruler from  Creative Grids. The markings on the ruler are for finished sizes, in this case we are making 4" finished blocks, so we will find the dashed line by the 4" marking and place that on top of our stitch line, than trim both sides.





Press the direction you prefer and you should have a really nice looking 4.5" unfinished Half Square Triangle Unit.
This method will give you a total of 8 half square triangle units from the two 10" squares (one print and one background)
If you happen to have Charm Squares instead of Layer Cakes you can draw 1 diagonal line and sew on both sides and cut only on the drawn line and this will give you the same 4" finished HST, you will get 2 from 2 5" squares (one print and one background)
Have fun making Half Square Triangles, next week we will do some layout work and see the many different ways these units can be laid out to make a wide variety of blocks.
Have a great weekend,
Kayla

Half Square Triangle: Intro

Happy Thursday, and it's the last day before a long weekend so even better. Do you have any special plans for Easter with your family? Our's will be a little different than usual as we usually attend worhsip services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday and have a couple large family dinners. Instead we will be doing church from home via live feed and having some much smaller dinners.  I must say I am very thankful for technology right now that allows for so much video contact with others.
Speaking of videos we did a live video at our store and introduced a new video series that we will doing via Facebook Live.
She is going to be walking us through a Half Square Triangle Sampler Quilt. Every Thursday at 1pm for the next few weeks she will show you a few different layout options to make a couple new blocks. And show you how to use the Creative Grids 4-in-1 Half Square Triangle Ruler.
To participate you will need some fabric. For this quilt along we are suggesting layer cakes, 1 of a collection and than a background one or a 2nd printed one. Now background layer cakes can be a little more difficult to find, and so one option is to just by 3meters of your background fabric and cut it into 10" squares.
Esther is using Early Bird by Bonnie and Camille, as described in her video she had a fat quarter bundle at home so she cut her 10" squares from this, and she cut her 10" background squares from a piece of yardage.
You will also need the 4-in-1 Half Square Triangle Ruler, a regular ruler, rotary cutter, mat, sewing machine, marking pen, and a ruler for marking.
A new video will be posted at 1pm on Facebook and you can tune in to watch and ask questions as we all sew together. There will be prizes available to win so make sure you tune in and say Hi so we know your watching.
As mentioned in the video the Half Square Triangle is not a new block or technique by any means but many people still shy away from them. Hopefully through these next few weeks you can gain some confidence and either learn or refresh yourselves on this fun unit that is the base of so many different patterns!
I know many of you have the Creative Grids 4-in-1 Half Square Triangle Ruler as we have sold hundreds of them during various shows, and demos, but for those of you that don't here is a link to where you can get one.
 Remember our shop is closed this weekend so there is no Curbside Pickup available until next week again.
Also next week we have a little Give Back Program happening, for every online order of $50 or more placed through our website we will donate $10 of groceries to the Coaldale Food Bank. The dates for this are April 13-18.
 Have a great Easter Weekend!
Kayla