If you’re sewing the Splendid Sampler blocks, it will be apparent that my block # 51 is missing the hexie flower.  I can’t find my freezer paper anywhere which I need for the tiny hexies.  But the rest is done finally.  The rest of this is supposed to look like a bee.  Hmm….

Actually I think mine is reversed but I don’t think it it was right it would still look very much like a bee – haha!

I haven’t squared it up yet.  I really struggled with figuring this block out.  That teeny tiny tail at the very bottom was a challenge.  Once I finished sewing the bee (the blue is supposed to represent the blue sky per the instructions), I ironed some Heat ‘n Bond on it before adhering it to the square background to keep it stead while I did a blanket stitch around the end.

I also finished quilting the last block left on the machine quilting block party so now I’m officially caught up on that until September.  These are not in the order that I plan to leave them in – if nothing else, I need to switch the middle one for the bottom middle one.

Leah said that starting in September, she will walk us through how to start joining these blocks together.  I’ve never done a “quilt as you go” project so this should be interesting.  The main block itself is 12×12″ and each has a 1″ border around for a total of a 14″ block. I’ve folded the blocks to get an idea of what the sashing will look like.  I have been giving some thought though, since there’s fabric and batting to do it, to add another 1″ batting of various colors to connect each block but that might get tricky. I wish I had bought enough fabric to finish this out to 16 blocks and just create 4 on my own.  3 blocks across by 4 down is just 42×56″ – about the size of a baby quilt.

Since I was as caught up as I could get, I started on the Christmas quilt I have planned.  One of the salespeople at the LQS showed me this pattern the other day and the fabrics actually are very close to what I used for my niece’s quilt. But I also bought some Christmas fabric, so I’m going to make this for Christmas instead.

The thin lines are made up of 1″ strips sewn together and then trimmed with rectangles on each side.  There are 3 sizes of triangles which make up the rest.  It calls for just shy of 4 yards of “whitish” fabric and then 10 fat quarters – or more if you want to really mix it up, which I might.

I looked at several YouTube videos on how to trace and cut this fabric. Most seemed to suggest taping the pattern down first, then taping the plastic over the top to hold everything in place, then a fine point Sharpie to trace with along with a ruler for any straight lines and cutting with regular scissors.

It may not be obvious from this picture, but the plastic is thin and very easy to see through so tracing it is a cinch.  One word of warning though – the Sharpie pen smudged a few times.  I tried using a ball point pen but it doesn’t want to write well on the plastic so I stuck with the Sharpie.  These are pretty large templates – the large triangle I think is 10 1/2″ across the top side in this photo, so it didn’t take long to trace out since there are only a total of 8 templates I think.

I did cut them out as suggested to me by several people, but it sure seems like it would be easier just to put a new blade in the rotary cutter and cut it that way instead since the feedback I got for using regular scissors – not shears or a rotary blade – was that it would dull the blade.

I’ll probably put this aside until Friday unless tomorrow’s Splendid Sampler block is either super easy, or something like embroidery (which I’ll do in the evening if that’s the case).

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