Hello Hive 3 friends! I am so blessed to again be part of Stashbee (my 4th year). I've love getting to know other quilters through stashbee and IG, I love getting to make new blocks that use techniques I've never tried before, and of course, I love it when it is my turn to be Queen and get blocks in the mail all month long! For this month, I've chosen a deceptively simple "Ocean Waves" block inspired by few quilts I've seen on pinterest or IG (here's one example from Fat Quarter Shop).
The "standard" Ocean Waves block is essentially a four patch with a lot of HSTs, which ends up 16x16. However, when I made my test block, the whole block took about 3 hours to make, which is twice our time allowance for stashbee. So, I am only asking for "half" a block. With two-at-a-time Half Square Triangles (HSTs), making this half block is a breeze!
Colors
I would like to stick with ANY BLUE FABRIC for the blues, and
ANY white or white-on-white fabric for the white.
I would like the blues to be scrappy, but the white color to be all the same for the whole block.
Lets talk BLUES. Some examples of fabrics I like are below. You can see that the blues can have all different colors in them, but are mostly blue. I don't really like batiks, and would like you to choose prints (one or two solids in the collection would be fine, just not all solids). My personal tastes definitely run toward modern prints, think Ruby Star, Cotton and Steel, Windam Fabrics, Riley Blake, and Paintbrush Studios. However, this is a scrappy quilt, so please use what you have!! I adore little fussy cuts and little hidden cuteness, and any fabric you think will make me smile I'm sure I will love and appreciate! Here are photos of fabrics from my stash that I love and would work with this quilt. (Of course my basement sewing room has the WORST LIGHT EVER so these blues are much "happier" in person but you get the drift.). Any and all shades of blue are welcome!!
Last point on blues: I would prefer that all the blues be different fabrics. However, I am aware that Stashbee has a ten different fabric ask limit, and I am asking for 12 different blue fabrics in addition to the white so I guess that is technically 13. So, if you are not able to come up with 12 different blue fabrics, please reach out to me and I would be more than happy to send you some from my stash for you to use. My scrap bins are always overflowing and I would be more than happy to share. (But if you are like me (aka a fabric hoarder) the hard part will be narrowing down your fabric choices rather than not having enough. but seriously, i'm not out to break the rules so just let me know what you need :D )
now for the fun part....
Fabric Cutting:
12 3x3 inch square of 12 different BLUE fabrics
12 3x3 inch squares of white fabric
8 2.5x2.5 inch squares of white fabric.
Making the Half Square Triangles:
With a water soluble pen (or heat disappearing, or pencil or whatever magical device you use to mark your fabric), draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of the white 3x3 squares. Pair each white 3x3 square with a blue 3x3 square right sides together and sew 1/4 inch on each side of the drawn line.
Then, cut on the drawn line, making two triangles.
Now you have two happy HSTs! Press to the dark side and trim each HST to 2.5 inch square.
Do this for all twelve of your blue and white squares to make a total of 24 HSTs. I like to chain piece this step and it goes quickly :) Then, sort them into two piles so that each pile contains each one of your 12 blue fabrics.
Laying Out Your Block
Then, grab 4 2.5in white squares and 12 HST and lay them out like below:
*these will be turned every which way in the quilt, so there is really no top or bottom or "right way up".
also, PAY ATTENTION to the slant of the triangles! It's really easy to get them turned around the wrong way (ask me how i know, lol)
I pressed the seams in rows 1 & 3 one way, and seams in rows 2 & 4 the other way for easy, beautiful nesting.
Repeat this step with your other 12 HST and 4 white 2.5 squares. You can see that I mixed up the colors so that the blues in each square are in different places, to go for that scrappy look.
Sew these two together (rotate them so they look like the photo above) to finish your "half block" for me. Should finish at about 8 1/2 by 16 1/2.
Ta Da!! Give your self a pat on the back and know how much I appreciate you for trimming all those HSTs so I don't have to :)
Love you guys!
katy @queen_city_quilts
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