Garden Sampler BOM: Month 11

 

It is already November! this year is flying by. 

We are on Block 11 of our Garden Sampler BOM, which means we are making the rosemary block. I made a couple adjustments in the cutting this month. Everywhere that the pattern asked for an 1/8, I rounded up to the nearest quarter. This gave me extra trimming room on my HST, 

The Pieces

For these Half Square Triangles I tried a little bit of a different squaring method, I still used my 4-in-1 HST ruler, but I pressed my triangles first, then found the appropriate markings on my ruler to trim. 
Trim up the side and top, then flip your block and ruler and trim again. 

Trim 1

Trim 2

On the big pink HST we need to add Flip and Stitch pieces, for those I used my diagonal seam tape. 

The Components

This block uses a little different method of putting the final block together, but we have done it before. I drew a box around my center block, 1/4" away from each edge so that I knew when to start and stop my seams. 

And now we have Block 11! I love how this block turned out, and I am so excited to put my blocks together next month. There is a lot of piecing involved in the sashing and we still have one more block to make, so that might be a two part blog so that I don't overwhelm you, and maybe to give me a bit more time to sew. 

Now I better get back to work getting everything done that I need to before I take off to Florida with my husband and with Kayla and her family next week. 

Have a great month everyone! I'll be back to share block 12 next month. 

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