Friday, April 1, 2016

Hive 1 - Rainbow Star Patch - April Blocks for Tori


Hi There....Tori here for April.  April Showers are supposed to bring May flowers.  Here in Maine they just bring a lot of mud....but they also bring Rainbows.  So I've been looking for a new block to try for a rainbow quilt for a while.  My favorite quilting technique is paper piecing but I didn't know how comfortable people were with that technique so I went with traditional piecing.

I found a block on Pinterest that I liked but couldn't find a tutorial...I didn't know what the blocks "name" was so I tried all kinds of different descriptors to see if I could find one....but no luck.  So here's my attempt at a tutorial for a block for a quilt that I've named "Rainbow Star Patch".  I love the colors of the rainbow in quilts and I've done a number of Mini's that really showcase these colors.  I like the bright colors more so than the "primary" colors.  So here is my block.





Pretty Simple....sixteen 4.5 in squares with a star.  I used Solids and tone on tone fabrics only...no prints.  I did get to use some of my Benartex Fossil Fern fabrics on some of the blocks I've made for this project and they worked well.  Here is a sampling of the colors I pulled from my stash.  Feel free to use any "bright" color you have in your stash as long as its all the same tones and they "blend well".


Fabrics and Cutting info:

From solids/tonal prints - cut 14 - 4.5" blocks
From White - 1 - 4.5" block
8 - 2 3/4" blocks

I made each block I did based around one color scheme.  I used two solids and two tonal prints for each block.   First I cut my 15 blocks of "color" fabric (4.5" each) and one square of white fabric (I used Kona White).  Then I laid out my pieces for the color combination that worked best.


I then cut out 8 2 3/4" squares for the "star" points.  I drew a diagonal line from corner to corner on one of the white blocks for a straight sewing line.  Then placing it on one corner of one of the blocks adjacent to the white square, I sewed directly on the line.


Once I sewed that block on I then trimmed the corner off 1/4" from the line we had just sewn.



Turn over and press the seam toward the white.  The pictures show pressing towards the teal fabric in these photos, but I went back and pressed them the other way because the fabric worked better that way.  

After pressing repeat on the other side of the color block.  Trim to a 4.5" square.  This will become two of your eight star points.  




Repeat for the other three adjacent blocks.  Lay out your blocks again for the layout you like the most.  The block is a square so it doesn't matter which of the four center blocks you make the center of the star because the blocks can be turned all different ways when I figure out my layout.


Sew each row together and then sew the rows together and voila!  Block should be 16.5" square.


I'm planning on this being a king size quilt for my bed so I've started on some blocks of my own because I'm going to need a lot, so don't worry about which color's I need....as long as they are "rainbow bright" we're all good.


Thank you to everyone for helping make this stash bee experience a fun one!




1 comment:

Lanakila said...

Great minds think alike; we must have been inspired by the same Pin. Check out my block for Hive 2!