Hive 8 October Block Tutorial for Karen

10/14 Update: 
My hometown Santa Rosa, CA has experienced devastating fires this week, along with many nearby communities in California. I am so grateful and fortunate that my house and dearest loved ones have been spared. Many I know were not so lucky. Though the fires are not fully contained, we are tentatively returning home today. I was moved to tears to find an awesome block and sweet card from Rochelle when I checked the mail when I got home. I had forgotten all about Stash Bee. Today is my birthday. It seems so trivial right now amidst all the suffering to think of celebrating my birthday today. However, as my birthday wish, I would like all of you to celebrate something precious in your life for which you are grateful. We have so much to appreciate. Today I appreciate my community for supporting each other. 

Greetings busy bees!
After changing my mind approximately 50 times, I decided the most appropriate block for this month is a trip around the world. I will be excited to have blocks coming in from all over the world to complete this quilt. I've been working on blocks for this quilt and already have a collection started, but I'm running out of fabrics I haven't used already. 

You can see below the blocks I have already (many made by other friendly local quilters) and strip sets from my stash ready to be cut into more blocks. I'm planning to double the size of this quilt, so I need 21 more blocks! (Which means fabric shopping is in order!!)

I have always loved trip around the world quilts, and thank you for joining me for this adventure. These instructions will tell you how to make one 15” finished (15.5” raw) block to go in a scrappy trip around the world quilt. The process to make the pattern is fun and unique!

Materials:

You will need a total of six 3” x 18” strips of fabric. This is easily cut from a fat quarter. It may help to use a slightly longer strip (19" or so) and trim down when you subcut, because sometimes the strips shift a little.

1. Teal, turquoise, blue-green in a medium to dark value. Prints and solids are both great.
2. Cream, ecru, white, light grey, “low volume” – a very light print or solid.
3. Mint, aqua, blue-green in a medium to light value. (This should be lighter than #1.)
4. Cream, ecru, white, light grey, “low volume” – another very light print or solid.
5. Pink, peach, pale yellow, basically any pale color in the “warm” tones – red, orange, and yellow. Try to keep this one fairly pale. I want the blue-greens to dominate and this fabric is just to add some warmth to an otherwise cool quilt.
6. Cream, ecru, white, light grey, “low volume” – yet another very light print or solid.

• I say above that prints and solids are both fine, but please do not make a block with only solids. Most of the blocks are mostly prints, and an all solid block looks out of place.
• Also, other than cute cats, which you'll see a lot of in my work, I don't tend to like novelty prints or anything that screams "Kid fabric." Geometrics and texty prints are always safe. 

Instructions:

Sew the strips together, right sides together, to form a strip set in the order they appear above. Hint: don't use a really short stitch length because you will need to unpick some of the seams. Use a ¼” seam throughout. Press seams open or to the dark side, whichever you prefer. You should now have something like this:

Sew the open edges of strip 1 to strip 6, right sides together, to form a tube (fun!)*. The tube should have all the seams on the outside and the right sides on the inside. Don’t worry about pressing the last seam yet.

* Because I know it can help to see this in action, I recommend watching this 4-minute Youtube video if you need help visualizing the tube step: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMme9yva1Xs   The video demonstrates the technique with different dimensions and more strips, but the idea is the same. 

Flatten the tube and lay it on your cutting mat with the folds at the 1-6 seam and the 3-4 seam. You should see the backs of strips 1, 2, and 3. Cross-cut the tube into six 3” tubes:

On the first tube, remove the stitching between strips 1 and 2. On the second tube, remove the stitching between strips 2 and 3, and so on until you have six different strips that you can arrange in a cascading pattern. Press the last seam (between 1 and 6) on all your strips. Sew the strips together with the dark teals (strip 1) in the middle diagonal like this and press seams open: