Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Skopelos & New Cotton and Steel

We've been pretty busy in the shop making room for a lot of new bolts in the past few weeks and they've started to roll in!

Cotton + Steel has a great new collection of Black & White prints and its been flying out the door!


Katarina Roccella has a way with floral prints and we couldn't pass up our favorites from the Skopelos collection!  We have two different bundles available and I am not sure how I'll choose one ... both are so pretty!

And Gardenvale by Jen Kingwell is arriving next week!  Stay tuned!

Happy Sewing!

Monday, April 6, 2015

Smitten Quilt Along : Large Block Three and Small Block Three

Hey everyone!  I hope you are ready for more y-seams!  :-)  This month we are working on Large Block Three AND Small Block Three - they are exactly the same except for the size.  There are even less pieces than last month for each block, so its pretty fast to make... especially since you've got the y-seam down now, right?! ;-) 



For more details on the Smitten Quilt Along, visit this post here for dates and supplies, etc.  If you haven't purchased templates, go ahead and make your's using the pattern and template plastic or other material of your choice.  (Be sure to add the seam allowance if making your own templates.)

Note:  I glue baste my pieces.  I didn't take pictures of this for this month, as I shared them in the first month's post



Don't forget to mark your pieces!  It's all about connecting the dots!  Mark the wrong side of your fabric pieces with dots where the 1/4" seams would meet.  (The acrylic templates have holes, making this super easy!) Alternatively, you could use your ruler and pen to draw lines along the seam allowances to mark your start and stop points.



Layout your block and arrange your the prints as you like them.  You can choose to go scrappy like this block or be a little more matchy-matchy.  It's totally up to you ... I will have a little of both. 



For me, I prefer to piece hexagons and then add in the exterior diamonds.  Alternatively, you could piece all the star diamonds together (low volume prints here) and then add all the exterior diamonds (shown in green) last. It's totally up to you. 



When you are piecing three diamonds into a hexagon, you will sew from the hexagon center all the way to the outer edge.  The center will be the Y seam.  The edges will not be part of a Y seam, you so can sew all the way to the edge through the seam allowance.  Start by joining two diamonds (shown as low volume) and then add in the third (shown in green).



You will have three hexagons and three remaining diamonds for the exterior. Press all the hexagon seams in the same direction. 



Join the hexagons in rows as shown above.  You will sew dot-to-dot, unless you are sewing to an outer edge.  Refer to image below for seams. 



Next, sew the rows together.  Again, sewing dot-to-dot, unless sewing to the outer edge. 



Here is how the back will look when you are finished.



And the front.  Carefully press well.  To make the large block, it works the same... just with bigger diamonds. 



And that's it!  You're done!  Yippee!

Now plan and sew some more ... you need 2 completed Large Block Threes and 7 Small Block Threes.

I hope these photos were helpful to you...  I can't wait to make a few more myself and to see your's too! Don't forget to use #smittenquilt and #smittenquiltqal on Instagram. :-)

If you have questions, leave a comment, email me or tag me on IG!

Happy Sewing!  :)