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Hello and happy spring! Welcome to the third tutorial for the Block of the Month group over on my Facebook page. The theme for the 2018 quilt is "The Sky's the Limit Mystery Star Quilt". The fabric I am using for this quilt is from the Farmer's Daughter collection by Lella Boutique for Moda. I purchased it from Kerstin over at Huckleberry Quilting Company. I love her selection of sweet floral fabrics! She even offers free quilting patterns on her website. I hope you'll go and visit her shop full of happiness soon. The mystery block for March is called the Ribbon Star Block; I simply love how pretty it turned out! I can't wait to try the Ribbon Star in other projects...possibly even a mini quilt. I think you will find that your imagination goes wild after learning to sew this simple but versatile block. Let's get started!  The Ribbon Star Block  Here are the pieces you will need to complete one 12.5" (unfinished) block:
 Next: Match the twelve colored diagonals with twelve of the white diagonals and stitch them together. You can "chain stitch" to make this step go quicker. After sewing the diagonals together, you will have twelve half-square triangles (HST's) in all. Click HERE for a quick tutorial on chain stitching from the Patchwork Posse. It's easy and fun!  My chain-stitched HST's... aren't they lovely? I'm sure yours will be too!  But even though our lovely piles of HST's are to swoon over, we still need to move them along to the next step.  Using a hot iron (I like to use the steam setting), press all the HST's open; be sure to press the seam to the dark side of the fabric so that the seam doesn't show through the lighter background fabric.  Next, we want to trim our HST's into nice, neat squares. Trimmed squares behave so much more nicely in our finished project than do untrimmed, unruly squares. For my easy, step-by-step tutorial on trimming HST's, click HERE.  Once all the squares are nicely trimmed, we can lay them out into our Ribbon Star Block pattern.  The final step is to sew our block in rows as seen above. Press the seams open so that the block lays nice and flat. Now, wasn't that easy and fun? I'm proud of you!  I just love the elegant simplicity of this block! Not only does the pattern go together quickly and easily, it is a wonderful choice for an all-over quilt design. I hope you have as much fun thinking about the possibilities of this block as I did! Happy quilting! 
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Hello! We've left February behind and we're making steady progress through March. Today is beautifully sunny and it is very tempting to be outside picking daffodils instead of working indoors. But the motto at our house is, "do the things that need doing first and then do the things you want to do afterwards". Lucky for me, as a homemaker and quilter, most of the things that need doing are the very things I want to do! I'm reminded of a saying I've heard often, "Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life". That's how I feel most days, and I feel so blessed to have a job I love doing. Just a side note here...yes, the pie crust in the picture is slightly burnt. That's what happens when you talk on the phone and forget you have a pie in the oven! But I can assure you that the pie still tasted like a slice of sweet summer goodness. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and you'll be saying, "What burnt crust? I don't see any burnt crust!" LOL!  Speaking of things I love...blueberry pie happens to be pretty near the top of the list (right up there with chocolate pie). I also love surprises (well, pleasant ones), which is why I'm so pleased to reveal the surprise project I've been working on since January. Ready? It's my Blueberry Pie quilted table runner! Recently, I posted on my blog about the Blueberry Pie Block project I found over on Wendy Russell's website, Patchwork Square. You can Click HERE to read my Blueberry Pie Block tutorial.  It's the little things like this basket of freshly picked blueberries that make life lovely! It's not easy to put a price on the little things that bring us the most joy. Like Winnie the Pooh once said, "It's the smallest things that take up the most room in your heart." We've been so blessed to have a wonderful little farm as our home for the fast four years. Our family stays very busy from spring until fall working in the garden and flowerbeds, taking care of the chickens, and doing need jobs around the place. Summer months are also busy times for picking blackberries, blueberries, and muscadines. Sometimes it's a challenge to get every thing harvested and preserved, but it's so worth the effort!  After spotting the Blueberry Pie block on Wendy's website, I immediately knew there was a project and a blog post in the making. I happened to have just the perfect fabric in my stash...Roses on the Vine fabric collection by Marti Mitchell for Maywood Studios. The lovely floral and gingham prints couldn't have been more perfect for this table runner project. I used selected fabrics from a 10" Layer Cake along with some selected yardage for the border, backing, and binding.  I alternated the soft red, indigo, pink, and soft blue fabrics within the star blocks for variety.  This sweet cream fabric with roses and dots made a nice contrast for the backing. In addition, I chose to machine quilt this project using a free-motion meandering pattern (my current favorite).  The dark indigo gingham and classic dot fabric worked nicely for the sashing pieces and cornerstones. I love the contrast of these dark and light colors. The soft red border makes those dark indigo blocks pop!  Overall, Blueberry Pie is an easy block to construct, and it has a ton of possibilities when it comes to color options. I hope you'll give it a try the next time you're deciding on a quilting project! Click here for a link to my step by step tutorial for the Blueberry Pie block as well as the link to the free PDF pattern from Wendy Russell's website. Side note: I didn't use a specific pattern for the table runner but rather my imagination and a design board. I would love to hear where your quilting imagination takes you...Have fun and happy quilting!  |
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