Churn Dash Tutorial

I've put this little tutorial together for my Siblings Together Quilt Block Drive.  You folks are amazing, thank you so much for your response so far!!  If anyone else is interested, there is still space for a few more takers - details here.

There are other useful Churn Dash tutorials out there and I tried a few of them to make my blocks, but doing it this way was the way that I got the most accurate results.  I seem to manage HSTs better if I make them a little bigger and then trim them to the required size but the other tutes I used didn't approach them this way. So here's my take on the churn dash, but feel free to use any tutorial you like as long as you end up with a 12.5" unfinished block based on 9 units cut at 4.5".





Churn Dash Block

Fabric A (background) -

Cut 1: 4.5" square
Cut 2: 5" squares
Cut 4: 2.5" x 4.5"

Fabric B -

Cut 2: 5" squares

Cut 4: 2.5" x 4.5"

Use scant 0.25" seams throughout.

1.  Leave your 5" squares to the side for now and lay out all of the remaining pieces as above.

2.  Pair up the 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles of Fabric A with the rectangles of Fabric B, right sides together and chain stitch all four pairs.

 3.  Press the seams towards the darker fabric.

4.  Now let's make those corner HSTs.  Take the 5" squares and pair them up right sides together as shown (pair Fabric A with Fabric B).  Draw a diagonal line across the wrong side of each pair.

5.  Stitch a seam 0.25" on each side of the diagonal pencil line.

6.  Using your rotary cutter cut along the pencil line to separate your HSTs.

7.  As before, press seams towards the darker fabric.

8.  Now trim the HSTs to 4.5" square, taking care to line up the diagonal seam with the diagonal line on your ruler.

9.  Lay out all your 4.5" units in the correct order ready to sew together.

10.  Stitch the units into rows and then take the rows to your ironing board.

11.  Take the middle row first and press the seams towards the darker fabric (that might be different from my photo depending on your fabric choices).  Then, press the top and bottom rows in the opposite direction.  In my sample block, the middle row seams were pressed outwards and the top and bottom rows were pressed in towards the centre.  This alternate pressing of seams will help you to nest your seams together nicely in the next step.

11. Placing rows 1 and 2 right side together, butt the seams and pin in place to hold while you stitch the row together.  Repeat to join rows 2 and 3.

12.  Press the final two seams of the rows open to reduce the bulk in your block.

13.  Trim to 12.5" square.  Stand back and smile because you've just made great looking block!!


Don't forget if you are making this block for my Siblings Together Quilt Block Drive all the other details are on this post.  And, thanks a million!!

Block Tutorial - Road to Tennessee

If you've popped over from Judith's blog to see what February's Bee Blessed block is, I hope you'll like it!  It's a scrappy version of the "Road to Tennessee".

We're going to work this block with white solid and bright scraps with a view to creating some more children's quilts for donation to a Belfast Mother and Baby HIV Unit.  I hope you'll join with us in having a go at this month's block. (If you are used to making siggy blocks for other Bees, you should find this is pretty much the same deal but with reverse placement of the fabrics).

So enough waffle from me and on with the tutorial.  Rotary cutters at the ready!

Use scant 0.25" seam throughout.

Cut 16 squares 3.5" x 3.5" in bright coloured fabrics.
Cut 32 squares  2" x 2" in plain white solid.

Draw a diagonal line in pencil on the wrong side of each white square.

Sorry about the late night blur.

Take one white square and lay it right sides together on top of one of your coloured fabrics lining it up to the top right hand corner.  I have laid the ruler to show the direction your diagonal pencil line should run.  Sew along the diagonal line.  (Just a wee note if you happen to be using directional prints:  once the white corners have been stitched this will restrict where you can place the unit within the overall block design, so if you need it to sit in a particular direction you might need to work out which opposing corners to stitch the white squares to.)

 Repeat with all remaining coloured squares by chain piecing.

 Trim away the excess fabric 0.25" from the stitching line as shown. Repeat for all squares.

Press the seam towards the coloured fabric. Repeat for all squares.

Now take the remaining white squares and align them right sides together with the opposite corner of your remaining coloured squares.  Stitch along the diagonal line, trim away the excess and press seam towards the coloured fabric in exactly the same way as before.  Trim each unit to 3.5" square if necessary.

You should now have sixteen 3.5" squares with one pair of opposite white corners.  Decide on your layout remembering to take care if you have directional prints you want to end up a particular way.

Piece into pairs and then into 4 four patch units remembering that with each pair you should press seams in alternate directions to allow your intersecting seams to butt more easily.

These larger four patch units can then be stitched once again into pairs, pressing seams in alternate directions to allow beautiful butts (!) when you make the final row join.

And finally, trim to 12.5" square and breathe!

Hope this all makes sense, apols for some of the dodgy photos - it's so hard to tell at night whether the pics have taken clearly.  Any questions, please ask.

Looking forward to seeing your fab scrappy Road to Tennessee blocks!

Great Big Kiss - quick tutorial

If you've checked in to find a tutorial on puckering up - I'm sorry to disappoint!  That's a whole other blogsite!  It's just a block tute I'm afraid, and I've called it the Great Big Kiss block because this block just reminds me of the big XXs that we add to the bottom of our greetings cards.

If you know the real name of this block, could you please share it with me?  It reminds me of a bow tie variation, but I cannot find the pattern in any of my books or online resources and I know I first saw a picture of blocks like this on a blog somewhere about 18mths ago but cannot remember where.

Anyway, as some of you may remember I made up loads of these blocks for this quilt which I made my son last Christmas.  This was such a simple but fun block and so I thought I'd write up a wee tutorial so I don't forget how I made them.  Thought some of you might be interested in it too.  So, with apologies for some of the pics being a little out of focus, here goes:

Cut 4: 4.5" squares solid fabric
Cut 5: 4.5" squares patterned fabric
Cut 8: 2" squares patterned fabric

Use scant 0.25" seams throughout.

1.  Take all 8 of your 2" squares and draw a diagonal line across the wrong side of the fabric. This will be your stitching line.  Top tip: as the fabric can shift under the pull of the pencil, I start my line from the centre of the square and draw out to one corner and then go back to the centre and draw the other half of the line out to the other corner - it really does help. Please note that for directional fabric it will matter which way you draw the diagonal, so you may need to figure out which way that needs to happen first.

If you look carefully you can see how I didn't pay attention to the
directional fabrics in this test block I made last year.  All of the full
squares are running with stripe vertical, but my little corners are a
mixture of vertical and horizontal.

2.  Now take 1 of your 2" squares and align it, right side together, to a corner of a solid square.  The diagonal line should cut across the corner not through it.

The square on the right is positioned correctly with the diagonal
cutting across the corner, not through it like the one on the left.

Stitch on the diagonal line.  Trim off the corner 0.25" from the stitching line and press seam open towards the patterned fabric.

3.  On the same solid square repeat step 2 adding another corner adjacent to the first.

4.  Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the remaining 3 solid squares.  You now have four white squares with little patterned corners.

5.  Now you have 9 4.5" squares ready to be stitched together in the usual nine-patch way.  Lay out your 9 patches as shown below.

6.  Sew the blocks into rows, pressing the seams of the top and bottom rows towards the patterned outer squares and the seams of the middle row towards the patterned centre square.

7.  Placing rows 1 and 2 right sides together, butt the seams and pin in place to hold while you stitch the row together.  Repeat to join rows 2 and 3.

8.  Now press the seams of the fully joined rows open to give you a nice flatter finish.

9.  Trim your block to 12.5" square and smile at the Great Big Kiss you just made!

Hope it works for you!