Monday, March 11, 2013

Another Quilt Show Team Challenge


At our quilt show meeting in December, our leader, Cindy, gave each of us a half yard of a Bella Solid from Moda. Luckily, she let us each pick the color we wanted. I had a hard time choosing and finally settled on Cobalt Blue. I used it in the above alternate blocks for the triangles.. All the other fabrics are from my stash. I chose the sage like green for the other alternate triangles because I had a lot of it and I also liked how it went with the blue. I'll have to order more of the blue. I'll need 35 blocks total, each block will finish at 8 1/2" for a 42.5" x 59.5" quilt. Luckily, too, Cindy didn't give any other rules than to use the fabric in a quilt. The finished quilts will be shown in the 2014 show.  Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle will be our speakers that year so I think the idea was to do something a little more modern but that isn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to go more Amish style. I hope to get the top done quickly because I want to hand quilt it and I don't want to be working on it near the deadline like I did with this years team challenge quilt. That's my goal, anyway. ; c )

What do you think of the black? I wasn't going to use it or the red at first. I think the black helps to ground it.

According to my block book, this is the Courthouse Square block. I've been enjoying all the Granny Square quilts so many quilt bloggers are doing now and this is similar. I took some photos as I worked. I like constructing one block at a time. There may be faster ways to do it. This just works for me.

For the triangles I cut 5" and 3" strips. For setting triangles I used the 5" strips and cut 5" blocks then cut on the diagonal both ways. I didn't take a photo of the corner triangles. For those I cut 3" squares and cut just once on the diagonal.

 Here is my sewing layout. The squares are cut 2 1/2".

Sewn into diagonal rows. 

Then the rows are sewn together. I purposely make the triangles larger than I need them and trim. 

 Trimming up the block, making sure I have 1/4" beyond the points.

A 9" block.

I'm trying to pay more attention to my surroundings as I walk my dog every morning. One day last week I was looking way up into my neighbors trees and spotted a very large bird in a tulip poplar. I'm pretty sure it's a hawk. We see them every now and then. They are impressive birds. Wish I'd seen it fly off.

14 comments:

  1. I love the Granny Square block... and I like the addition of black fabric to your blocks. Thanks for showing how you put the block together... I love seeing tips like this!

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  2. They look beautiful! I do love the Amish look - it is on my list of quilts to make. Hard to restrict oneself to plain fabrics but so effective! Thanks for showing the construction too.
    Hilda

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  3. This is very clean and graphic looking. I love what the black and red do to give it depth. I have so little solid colored fabric, I could never pull this off. But this block is on my bucket list, so I appreciate the construction tips. I wish you well with your hand quilting goal!
    Love the hawk photo. : )

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  4. I really like how this is coming along and your colors are perfect. The addition of black is great for the Amish look you wanted too! Solids are being pushed as modern these days, but they can also be very classic esp. when hand quilted.:)

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  5. OH I love the look of this so far, you chose a great color! its really graphic and I love that.
    keep going I know its going to be amazing hand quilted.
    thanks for the tutorial, I love posts like this
    Kathie

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  6. Love the colours in your blocks, the black is a winner.

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  7. I'm a great fan of solids, so your blocks are right up my alley, and yes, the black and red, wonderful additions!!!! I love your method of construction too, foolproof LOL!!!! Hmmmmm....you've got me thinking....dangerous LOL!!!!!

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  8. I love Bella solids. These blocks are so fresh and pretty!
    What a regal and proud looking hawk.
    I took a workshop with Bill - it was so inspiring and wonderful

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  9. Very interesting challenge...I like it! Clean and fresh.

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  10. I love your challenge. Very striking. Hugs, Cathy

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  11. I've been a bit of a slacker on reading and commenting on blogs. Love your solid challenge!!
    I adore and yrou red and white strippy sampler too:)

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  12. The quilt definitely has an Amish feel. Great work and thanks for the piecing tips. I can see this pattern done in neutrals and hope to make it one day.

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  13. i think that your additions of red and black really help push it into that Amish look and i like the way these blocks all look together. i think when you get some hand quilting into those solid colors you are going to be absolutely delighted at how beautiful this is~!!~i know that i can hardly wait to see how it transforms with that next process applied~!

    i like cutting my triangles a bit larger and trimming to size as you did too. when you are finished trimming, every block fits beautifully with the next.

    a beautiful hawk~!and quite large too.
    it's too bad that you didn't get to see it move around a bit more as it would be a bit easier to identify but here is a link to a great site that i found while trying to figure it out: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/id
    maybe you'll see it again and be more able to tell what kind of hawk it is.

    it looks like that tulip tree is ready to either leaf out or bloom . . . i've not seen this type of tree before but it looks like large buds/bloom? maybe during one of your upcoming walks you can shoot it again so we can see the progress that your spring season is making?

    :-)
    libbyQ

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  14. Love the colours of your Granny Squares and I think you were right to include the black and the red. They make the colours pop. It is a good tip to cut those outer triangles slightly bigger. The finished block looks very neat and tidy.

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