I love to sew, mainly quilts and bags. I am 66, married to Fred and have one son, Matthew, who is 27. I enjoy embroidery and applique and prefer to machine piece and quilt my projects. I love my vintage Singer sewing machines especially my Featherweight 222K. I’m enjoying treadling on my 201K Singer and I collect Miniature Sewing Machines and currently have three Essex , one Singer 20, one Singer 40, two Vulcan Miniatures and my latest, a Grain. My love of sewing I believe comes from my Grandmother - I still have the drawings she made for me to embroider on tea towels many many years ago!

Sunday 20 February 2011

.... AND THIS BLOCK WAS "JUST RIGHT"!!

BLOCK # 8 - CIVIL WAR QUILT......This was a nice easy block.  At first, I just used a 4  1/2" square of the dark fabric with  3" corner squares to form the snowballs, but this resulted in my  X  being a little narrow.....   there are 4 squares to each block.
First try..    I like my fabric choices, but
my  X  is too narrow
(compared with the pattern)
I loved the blocks in the flickr group that
used striped fabric.  As I am working
with 10" squares, I didn't have enough
of any one fabric so I used two different
colourways in the same stripe, but
it was impossible to cut matching squares,
so my stripes don't match.
X  is still too narrow.

























 
Success third time around!  I like the proportions of this
block.  I downloaded the template which was made with EQ6 and then
I just did the measurements from that.
This block used a  4  1/2" square with  2  1/2" squares for the corners
to form the snowballs - there are 4 squares to the block.

I really enjoyed making this block.  

MY HINTS AND TIPS FOR THIS ONE???

Well, I did find that precise pinning was a key point - I used my fork pins to match up all of the seams.  

I used a "scant" 1/4" seam allowance.

I did not use any steam in my iron until the very last press.

I tried pressing my seams open in the construction stages for blocks 1 and 2, but found that pressing to one side resulted in a better fit by the time I made the 3rd block.  I did press the final centre seam open.

All of my blocks came out the correct size....  8  1/2" pieced for an 8" finish.


It's been a very, very HOT AND HUMID AND STICKY couple of days here in Brisbane.... I'm surprised that I did any sewing at all!!!  It's kind of difficult keeping all the fabric where it belongs with the FAN on FULL BLAST!!  Still, it was cooler in my sewing room than other rooms in my house!

Hopefully I will get out to my LQS and buy some fabric to start on the ROYAL CRITTERS quilt - I am almost finished all of the embroidery on my Keep Movin' quilt so I will need a new hand sewing project soon!

Happy Sewing!!

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9 comments :

  1. Mrs Flying Blind...20 February 2011 at 21:03

    Oh Helen you are doing a terrific job - it all looks like a lot of concentration and accuracy that I don't have!

    Lucky you being 'hot' though - we have had frost this week and there's a bit of a nip in the air today!

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  2. Shay20 February 2011 at 22:08

    Practice makes perfect and in this case it seems to have held true. The block is lovely.

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  3. Cheryll20 February 2011 at 22:49

    You've been busy again/always! Nice work on the blocks too! :)

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  4. American Homestead20 February 2011 at 23:06

    Helen, it took a few tries for me as well. I love the purple one. It was fun working through this one though.
    Ellen

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  5. Barb20 February 2011 at 23:53

    I love the fact that you gave tips....these blocks look great!

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  6. Pamela Kieffer21 February 2011 at 01:34

    Here in Virginia we have a temp of 30 degrees, some warm weather would be welcome. Is Civil War fabric available in Australia?
    Love all your CW block.

    Stay cool.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous21 February 2011 at 21:53

    All of the blocks are beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Micki25 February 2011 at 07:46

    That's a lovely block!
    Micki

    ReplyDelete
  9. KatieQ26 February 2011 at 01:14

    Your Civil War blocks are looking great. I like your fabric choices.

    ReplyDelete

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