I was originally going to make a Friendship Star for this block, but a traditional Friendship Star only uses one fabric (other than the background), and I wanted to include at least one solid along with each print. So I decided to make it a Double Friendship Star instead. For this block, unlike all the…
Yet again, apologies for the lighting in the photos – even though it’s stopped raining (for now), the sky was still pretty overcast today, so it was pretty dark in my sewing room. I really should put a decent lamp in there… Anyway, the colours are way out in these photos. The “red” is actually…
The second wet-weekend block I created is called the Sawtooth Star. This one has a much larger centre than the other blocks I’ve made so far, which was a nice opportunity to show off one of the large-scale fabrics from the layer cake. To make a 9-inch finished block you’ll need: Print: one 5 inch…
It’s been a wet and miserable Queen’s Birthday weekend, so, apart from venturing out to buy baking supplies (so I could make muffins to take into work tomorrow – we’re having an all-day planning meeting, so I think treats will definitely be needed), and to go to Riccarton to see Solo (my first impressions verdict:…
This block is called a LeMoyne Star. Well, sort of. A proper LeMoyne Star uses a horribly complicated sounding technique called Y-seams, which I might try mastering one day, but not today. So this is a cheat’s version, that (apart from the seams running through the diamonds) ends up looking exactly the same as a…
Last weekend was the Lantern Festival, so on Sunday night I met up with Lytteltonwitch and (after a detour to watch Loving Vincent (which was… interesting? I liked the concept, and it was very pretty, but I thought the sound was badly done – it sounded too much like a radio play, and didn’t connect…
Another very traditional block, the Ohio Star. But unlike the other blocks I’ve made so far, which have just used two fabrics (plus the background), this time I’m adding a third fabric: Technically you can make an Ohio Star with just two colours (or even one, if you kept the central square the same as…
Racing along here! The third block is called a Dutch Pinwheel. It has a lot of parts, but they’re all the same: half-square triangles. So the instructions are pretty short. Now that I’m feeling a little more confident in my ability to sew a proper quarter-inch seam, I decided it was safe to start using…
The second Block of the Whenever is a nice simple Churn Dash. Nice and simple, but another block I’ve never tried before (possibly because of the whole “leap into the deep end before you try out the paddling pool” thing I’m so prone to…) Because this block has a plain centre square, I picked out…
Not to keep you in suspense any longer, I made that block again, this time being a lot more careful about my quarter inch seams. And it worked! It’s still a tiny bit smaller than it should be (I actually think my sewing machine is slightly out of alignment, because the needle doesn’t come down…