Hive 1 2021 February Tutorial - Mother's Dream

 

Hi, I'm Kathie from Allentown, PA, and am glad to have you joining me for this month's Stash Bee block.  The block I am asking you to make for February is called Mother’s Dream.  My 94 year old mother has been having some health issues, so I’d like to make this colorful quilt for her.  She is the one that taught and encouraged me to sew more than 60 years ago.

Fabric:  I’d like you to use three solid colored fabrics.  If you don’t have any, use anything that is close to solid-looking, like a tone-on-tone.  I’m looking for contrast, so pick one medium color, then one that is a lighter color and one that is a darker color than the medium.   You’ll see in my example that I used a dark purple and a coral and a light pink.

Color:  You can use any colors you want.  You don’t have to try to match colors.  There will be so many colors in the quilt that anything goes.  Here are a few that I’ve made as examples.

Pressing:  Although I normally press so that my pieces nest nicely, when I work with solids I usually press my seams OPEN.  I find that it produces a very flat and neat block. 

Cutting:

Darkest fabric – Cut one 4-1/2 by 4-1/2 inch square and four 4-1/2 by 2-1/2 inch rectangles.

Medium fabric - Cut four 4-1/2 by 2-1/2 inch rectangles.

Lightest fabric – Cut two 4-1/2 inch squares and two 5-1/2 inch squares.

Cut each of the light squares on the diagonal.

 

Sew

Sew the dark and medium fabrics together as shown below. 

Add the triangles cut from the 5-1/2 inch squares onto the sides of the two-color squares.  Make sure that the orientation of dark , medium and light fabric matches my picture. The triangles should be even with the medium fabric edge but will extend beyond the dark fabric at the top. Sew

Sew the three rows together.  The triangles will again extend beyond the dark fabric edges of the middle row.

Trim the light fabric so that it is even with the edge of the dark fabric.  You can line up your ruler so that the 4-1/4  inch line sits on the seam.  

Add the triangles cut from the 4-1/2 inch square to dark edges of the block.  Center the triangles over the edge as well as you can.  The block will be squared up, so it doesn’t have to be perfect.

 

 

You are done.  The final product will be somewhere between 12-1/2 and 12-3/4 inches.  Don’t bother to square it up.  I’ll decide the final size one I get all of them.  Thanks so much.