Put a Bowtie on It

Back to working on the BAMQ BOM, this time we're making a bowtie block. I always put up the blocks I've made so far so that I can check on the print mixture and color balance I've got going already. I decided  I wanted a mostly lighter  overall block (except for the bowties), and a fairly large block this time.

There's so many different ways to do this one, but I chose a fairly large quadruple version. My idea was to have a lot of fabrics in this block, mostly light grey prints in the background, some of which I haven't used yet. And then a mix of the darker almost black prints I've been working with. This was my initial layout.

Here's the final layout I decided on. Too bad the dark prints are getting cut in half triangles to make the bowties, I kind of like this look as squares.

Time to use a specialty ruler, the Simple Folded Corners ruler.  I put little sticky bookmarks for the edge lines I'm aiming for.

I chose the No-Trim version instead of the Oversize and Trim version. I like doing it this way, no line drawing or extra trimming required.

Did I sew together that teeny tiny HST™ as well as the folded corner? 

I bet you already knew the answer to that one! There can never be too many teeny tiny HST™s!

All the parts ready to assemble.

And there it is, a quadruple bow-tie block with 15 different prints.

The new block fits in really nicely I think. This is going to be an interesting quilt to try and put together.
 

Lupine Part Five Complete

 

It was a lot easier to zoom through the initial sewing together of the Lupine Mystery blocks I'm working on as I'd sorted them out into bundles. This is a picture before pressing the seams correctly.

Pretty soon I was sewing the last seam of the last block.

Beauty shot of the color and fabric print coordinated with my new iron (hee!) of the final block. This might be my favorite block and not just because it's the last one I made. I just like the combination of these prints, and I think the colors work really well together.

And here they all are together in a very purple class portrait. Wow some of those purples are Very Very Dark. Hope it works in the rest of the quilt. 

 Okay, that's part number Five done, so onto the sixth clue I go for this mystery quilt....

Lupine Block Ingredients

Yesterday I had the time to cut out the remaining white squares and set of four matching purple squares that I need for the Lupine mystery quilt. And lthen looking at the stack of really varied  purples, I knew that some fabrics in the hourglass units were going to play better with some of the purples, like this very much lighter overall version of the block above. 

I decided to pre-match them all up into sets of one white square, four matching purple squares, and four matching hourglass units. That means I've got  the rest of the block ingredients all ready to sew these together into finished blocks.

Community Giving Blocks

 

I've made five blocks for BAMQ Community Giving efforts this month. The one on the top left is our regular Postage Samp block. The other four blocks are made using the pattern for the two blocks that make up the Diagonal 16 Patch quilt.

Community Giving Blocks

I'm getting ready for Saturday's Bay Area Modern Quilting (BAMQ) meeting, and that means stitching up the Community Giving quilt blocks that I took the supply kits for. One of the kits was  short by two 2.5" squares, so I cut some from the fabrics I used for my mosaic table runner. They were on the top of the pile so they were easy to grab. 

It's a really easy block to put together, and here are all four. And this time I pressed all the seams open after the experience at the March Sew Day when we were all making these blocks without any seam pressing guidance. It makes a difference when you're putting a quilt together.
 

Homeward Bound

 

Last block for Patchwork Palooza! It's an easy Log Cabin, renamed "Homeward Bound" for this quilt.

I put purple in the center, because that's our house with the purple trim. Finally I got to use the matchstick fabric, it's really a challenging print.

Here's a view of the whole group of blocks as called out in the quilt design. I will be moving them around I think.  But now on to making the sashing and cornerstones and get to assembling.

Crosswalking

To keep motivated on the Patchwork Palooza front, after my recent catch-up, I decided to put them all up on the wall "in order" with the setting blocks (but not the sashing/cornerstones yet). Only two blocks left to make, and I want to make sure this scrappy thing is staying scrappy *enough* for me. Nothing says the blocks have to be in this arrangement, it's just the one the pattern designers came up with.

I did have the idea to switch this picture over to black and white, and wow, what difference this makes. The really hot one in the lower left corner is almost the same weight as the setting chain blocks.

In order to stay "caught up" with Patchwork Palooza, I jumped right on it and started making the newest one from this week, block number 20 (!), named Crosswalk. This was my initial fabric placement,

but I thought it was worth looking at alternatives. Much better.

I had to leave myself some breadcrumbs, ie labeling all the fabrics after swapping them around so many times.

The labels worked, and the block went together pretty easily.

 Just one more block to go...and the sashing/cornerstones and assembly of course.

Definitely too much of this one blue fabric down in the lower left corner, so those blocks will get sprinkled around the quilt I think, maybe in all four corners.

Palooza Twelve

 

As I mentioned on Saturday, I got all the ingredients cut out and labeled and together for the Patchwork Palooza blocks I missed out on making while I was traveling. The first block is entirely made up of HSTs, so I got out my Seams Easy ruler to mark the sewing lines. It works so well for me when I use it with a mechanical pencil.

And then when I was trimming up the HSTs I got out the 2.5" HST Bloc-Loc ruler, so handy and accurate!

And voilá, block 12 is completed.

Here's all twelve of the blocks in a very random placement.

Patchwork Palooza Ingredients

 

No new blocks assembled for Patchwork Palooza quite yet. 

But I have block ingredients all cut out to catch myself up.

I may have to break out another scrap box. Most of the pieces are on the small side now in the one I've been pulling from.

Blocks 12-15 are ready to sew together. I even ironed and spray starched all the pieces as there are many triangles ahead.

Patchwork Palooza #11

 

This week's Patchwork Palooza block was a pretty easy one, so I played around with different fabric choices. This one was too busy for me.

I thought this was a better look.

All done with the 11th block!

And of course the resulting teeny tiny HST's to add to my envelope.

Here's how it's looking so far, without the sashing and cornerstones as we still don't have the official measurements yet. I think it's working out color-wise so far. I may move some of the blocks around in the final version.

Palooza Setting

 

One of the projects I worked on during yesterday's wonderful Bay Area Modern Quilting(aka: BAMQ)  Sew Day yesterday was finishing off the rest of the background (or setting?) blocks for Patchwork Palooza. I had pre-sewed all the block pieces into the three rows per block, so they were ready to sew.

Here's how they look with the nine Patchwork Palooza blocks that I've made so far. I think I might need to make one more of them. But I'm feeling good about this project, keeping up with one new block a week is very do-able. And I'm really enjoying trying out new blocks that I haven't sewed before.

Now Presenting the Ninth

 

Block nine for Patchwork Palooza was an interesting one, I don't think I've ever made this one before. Also, I think it's the first time that I've re-used a fabric (the grellow polka-dot) in this project so far. But I needed a 2.5" strip and it was the only one I could find in my scrap box. The central square is leftover from one of the Community Giving quilts that I quilted. The image isn't exactly centered here, but close enough. The brown checkered fabric worked great, but the other one was maybe not the best choice here, although it does give the block more variety and movement. I do like the little bits of white that peek through. Hey, at least my points mostly stayed pointy.

Here's a group photo of my teeny-tiny-HST's™ collection for this project so far.

PrePalooza #9

 

This is a KaleidaCam version of the Patchwork Palooza blocks, it didn't make the cut for the monthly marker, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Getting to work on the ninth block for Patchwork Palooza.

Time for the ol' 8-at-a-time-HSTs method.

.

They turned out pretty well, thanks to the handy-dandy Bloc-Loc 2.5" HST ruler. But they don't get used in this block exactly like this...

They get used as the "skies"for Flying Geese.

The brown checkered fabric will be star points if I do this right. 

Executive decision made, I'll be sewing the rest of this block together tomorrow. I have to go crash out for a little while after getting my Covid shot today. I tried something different this time and did a fairly heavy weight workout, to try and help move the shot material around in my arm muscles. It worked well for the flu shot I got last week, no lump, no soreness, no fever like I usually get.