Hive 1 January Tutorial - Fresh Strawberries

Hello Hive 1!!!

Happy New Year! 

After this holiday season, I hope you still have some red and green left in your stash....

It's snowing outside here in Northeastern British Columbia, and I am dreaming of the long days of summer, drinking ice tea in the sun and eating fresh strawberries. It may be a long ways off, but at least I can sew up some strawberries in the meantime.

I used the tutorial and pattern by Skyberries Handmade. You can find it here 

I recommend following the original tutorial, but I have photographed the steps below, and included some tricks I followed to make sewing a little faster (chain piecing!).

Fabric & Colours:

This block is great for using up scraps. For this block you will need a White, 3 Greens, and 5 Reds or Pinks.
I like tone on tone and near solids, as well as polka dots, gingham and geometrics. I would prefer no prints that add other colours to the block.

White: Please use one fabric for all the white in the block. It can be a solid, or a white on white print. I prefer a bright white over off-white or cream, but whatever you have is fine.

Green: Any shade of green from deep forest green, to apple green and emerald, to lime, olive and chartreuse are okay. Just no teal please. When choosing the three greens, it would be great if there was some contrast between them.

Pink or Red: Please choose either red or pink, rather than mixing both. The block is scrappy, but you only need five different fabrics as the fabrics can repeat throughout the block. However, if you want to use up your scraps you can use more than 5 different reds or pinks, but I didn't factor in the extra cutting time that may require.

Cutting:

PINK or RED	GREEN	WHITE
Print A: 4 x 2in squares Print B: 4 x 2in squares Print C: 3 x 2in squares 1 x 2.5in square Print D: 3 x 2in squares 1 x 2.5in square Print E: 3 x 2in squares 1 x 2.5in square total: 17 x 2in squares and 3 x 2.5in squares	2 x 2.5in squares from print A 2 x 2.5in squares from print B 2 x 2in squares from print C	4 x 2in squares 5 x 2.5in squares

Step 2: Mark diagonals
Take the 5 white 2.5 in squares and one of the Green Print A 2.5 in squares and draw a diagonal line across each square from one corner to the opposite one.

Step 3: Pair up the 2.5" Squares
Pair a marked white square with the three pink or red 2.5" squares and one of each of the green 2.5" squares. Pair the marked green 2.5" square with the other remaining 2.5" square (these should not be the same print).

Step 4: Sew the Half Square Triangles (HSTs)
Sew a SCANT 1/4 inch seam on either side of the marked line. I chain pieced all the units down one side, and then did the same for the other side.

Step 5: Cut and Press HST seams open (to reduce bulk)

Step 6: Trim the HSTs to 2" square 

Step 7: Layout 

Step 8: Assemble All the Pieces!
One trick to assemble the rows quickly is to chain piece the rows. Watch this tutorial from Suzy Quilts for how she assembles a quilt, by chain piecing the blocks. I did the same thing with the individual squares, in order to chain piece the block together. After each row is sewn, press the seams of each row in alternate directions so that when you sew the rows together the seams nest together and are less bulky.

Finished Strawberry!