Hive 3 Tutorial May 2015

Hello Hive Mates! Jennifer here, posting this on a rainy spring morning here in Eagle Mountain, Utah. Thank you for being patient with me as life happened and I'm a little late at posting my tutorial.  This is my second year in the Stash Bee. Last year was so great, and I love my finished quilt so much I had to go for a second round.

About 2 years ago I helped a friend put together a Bazaar to help raise funds to have new stained glass windows made for their church. Many quilts were donated to auction off. One of these was a beautiful, bright, modern churn dash quilt. I put in my, what I thought was high bid, only to be out bid by $20 and the quilt go home with someone else. Since then I've been dreaming about a churn dash quilt of my own. So I'm hoping you will help me create the quilt.  It will be replacing the 10 year old, much loved, summer quilt on our king bed.

Colors

For this quilt I'm looking for bright modern colors to pair with low volume prints in grays, whites, and creams (but not to brown).  On the Brights please think of pattern size, I don't know if a large floral would work because they get cut down so much, they would loose there impact.

 

I happened to have a fat 8th stack of beautiful Polka dots with colors that I thought were great. There's not a lot of Orange or yellow in this but I'm fine with those colors as well.

Here is a group of colors I'd put together for my next block. (I'm going to need a bunch for a King)

Cutting

You will be making 4 churn dash blocks and joining them together to make 1 - 15 inch block. 

For each churn dash you will need:

Background    (2) 3.5 inch squares

                        (1) 1.75 x 12.5 inch strip

                        (1) 3 inch square 

Churn Dash     (2) 3.5 inch squares

                        (1) 1.75 x 12.5 inch strip

Assembly

All seams are 1/4 inch standard quilting allowance.  I am giving you directions for one of the church dashes, just repeat for the additional 3 blocks. I make all 4 at once chain piecing, but it's up to you. Cutting, sewing, and taking pictures took me just under an hour, I hope it goes just as fast for you.

1. On the 3.5 inch square mark a diagonal sewing guild line (this will make the half square triangle piece)

 2. Stitch on each side of your marked line.

3. Sew together your matching 1.75x 12.5 inch pieces. Iron open, I press to the dark side.

 4. Cut your 3.5 square in half along the drawn line so that you now have 2 pieces. Iron open, I press to the dark side.

 5. Trim up the half square triangles so that they measure 3x3 inches square.

 As you can see there wasn't much to trim (for all 4) but even this amount produced more accurate blocks. 

 6. Take your sewn strip and cut into 4 - 3 inch pieces. You might have a bit on each end to ensure a 3x3 piece.

  

7. Line up block. Sew columns and then rows together. 

 When I press these I like to make sure my outside pieces are pressed one way and the middle pressed the other so that they will netsle nicely as they are sewn together.

8. Congratulations you have now finished one churn dash block. This should be about 8 inches square. Now repeat with additional 3 blocks or if you have chain stitched you now have 4 blocks.

9. Arrange the blocks as desired, then sew the 4 pieces together to create one large block. Mine measures 15.25x15.25 inches. 

As you can see I choose to reverse the tones (reverse) on the green piece, using the color as the background and the low volume print as the churn dash. I'd love for you to try this if you have the time!

Thank you so much for your time and effort on my behalf to make this block. I'm really excited to see your work! If you have any questions or concerns please let me know! I post a lot of my work/life on Instagram so please go find me! @mrsjbarclay

So for the question to continue getting to know each other:

Where to you do most of your sewing?

I am lucky and have a beautiful room in our basement where I keep my fabric and sewing supplies and have a table. However, it's all the way in the basement and away from where the kids play and where the action happens in our home. So most of the time I drag out my machine and cutting mat and sew on the kitchen table, either during the day or at night while my husband watches TV. I'm hoping to change that with some of the remodeling we are doing, but we'll see what happens.