Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Hive #3 -- January Block

Hello Hive #3!! I'm so excited to be your Hive Mama this year!

What is your name? Alison V. I blog at littlebunnyquilts.blogspot.com!

Where do you live? Central Pennsylvania currently, originally from southeastern Michigan.

Tell us about your family (Spouse, kids, grandkids, pets, etc.) I am recently married (October 12, 2013) to my college sweetheart, Dan. We are having lots of newlywed adventures and if you're on Twitter, I chronicle the hilarious things he says with #quotablehusband. No kids or pets just yet.

On our honeymoon in Charleston, SC

Tell us about how you got interested in quilting. My mom always sewed and quilted as far back as I can remember -- she made us Christmas and Easter outfits every year! She always encouraged us to be creative so we fiddled around with all sorts of different crafts wen we were young. I started quilting when I was in high school and have made many, many quilts since then. I don't qualify myself as any "style" of quilter (modern/traditional/etc.) because I like to dabble in all sorts of styles.

How do you organize your fabric stash? (Picture appreciated) Very poorly? Not sure if I want to share a picture. My craft shelves are all a mess because I had to give up half of my space to my husband so everything is all crammed together. I do have a half dozen plastic boxes that are technically for 12x12 scrapbook paper that I keep scraps (2 boxes), fat quarters (1 box) and individual WIPs (3 boxes) in that are easy to take out and put away or take with you if you're going on a trip.

Who is/are your favorite fabric designers? Basic Grey and Joel Dewberry. I'm currently working on hoarding Bungalow to make a double wedding ring quilt.

What is one thing you have learned that you wish you knew when you first started quilting? I wish that I would have had the discipline to complete projects (ie do the hand quilting on a queen sized quilt) and not just start three new tops when you finish one top. I still have to finish quilting that queen sized quilt. Oops.

What is your favorite sewing/quilting tool and why should we all go out and buy it? I really love my 3.5x12.5 Creative Grids ruler. It is an excellent size and I use in every project that I do. It's also nice and small to take with you if you travel.

Who is your favorite fictional character and why? (Could be from a book, movie, TV show, etc.) I have always and will always love Ramona Quimby from the books by Beverly Cleary. I read and reread those books so many times and just loved how sassy that Ramona always was. She was the definition of "second child syndrome."

Here's the block for this month:

 
This is a 16 inch block from The Quilter's Cache called "Firewheel" that I adjusted to use fast flying geese and stitch-and-flip triangle corners instead of ten thousand half square triangles.


You will need:

Light/medium grey background (I used Kona Ash because that's what I had, can be solid/tonal/small scale print):
4 – 6 ½ x 2 ½ rectangles
4 – 4 ½ x 2 ½ rectangles
8 – 2 ½ squares
4 – 2 7/8 squares (fast flying geese)

 
Yellow (can be scrappy!):
5 – 4 ½ squares
4 – 2 ½ x 4 ½ rectangles
4 – 2 7/8 squares (fast flying geese)

 
 
 
Black (can be scrappy!):
4 – 2 ½ squares
2 – 5 ¼ squares (fast flying geese)







How to make it:

Make one set of fast flying geese using a black 5 1/4 inch square for the "goose" and the yellow 2 7/8 inch squares for the background. Make one set of fast flying geese using a black 5 1/4 inch square for the "goose" and the grey 2 7/8 inch squares for the background. Please make sure to trim off any dog ears! (PS. if you're unfamiliar with fast flying geese, I will post a tutorial on my blog!)


Sew one yellow 2 1/2 inch x 4 1/2 inch square to the black side of each black and grey flying geese unit.

 
Sew the yellow background flying geese units to the yellow rectangles so that both of the black geese are pointing in the same direction with the yellow rectangle separating the two units.


Set these units aside.

Using the yellow 4 1/2 inch squares, sew one black 2 1/2 inch square to each corner using the stitch and flip method. I have to draw a diagonal line down all of my stitch and flip squares to make sure that they end up straight. Trim to a 1/4 inch seam allowance.


Repeat on the two adjacent corners with the grey background 2 1/2 inch squares. Your two grey triangles should each touch one side of the black triangles that you sewed on in the previous step. Trim seam allowances to 1/4 inch, but do not trim your seam allowances until you are 1000% sure that you sewed them onto the right corners.


To each of your stitch and flip squares, sew one 2 1/2 inch x 4 1/2 inch grey background rectangle and one 2 1/2 inch x 6 1/2 inch grey background rectangle to the square so that the black triangle is surrounded by grey background fabric for the 4 corner units of the block.


Using the last 4 1/2 inch yellow square as the center, arrange the 4 flying geese units and 4 corner units together and sew the final block together.


If you have questions/comments/concerns, please email me or post on this month's Hive #3 thread in the Flickr group. Can't wait to see what everyone ends up making!

1 comment:

HotPinkThread said...

Hello from Hive #5 in CT. I love this block, and I love the colors too. I may have to make one of these too!