Hive 4- September Tutorial - Mosaic Tiles for Meg

Hi!  My name is Meg and this is my first year doing Stashbee : ).  I love to collect quilt patterns even though I will never have time to make them all, and I have had this YouTube video saved for quite a while hoping I would get to it one day: https://youtu.be/twK-hloqxOY.  This video makes a disappearing hourglass block look REALLY easy, and it makes the final quilt look so amazing!  So, this video is the inspiration for the block for September - a disappearing hourglass that will finish 14.5" square in red, white, and blue.  Here is the first practice block that I made:

Fabrics: Go wild with red, white (or cream) and blue!  Here is a pic of my fabric pull from my stash:

 You can pick whatever inspires you the most :) whether it be big or small prints, solids, novelty, holiday, USA patriotic, Australian patriotic, Canadian patriotic, batiks, wherever your heart takes you.  My favorite thing about block swaps is seeing what inspires other people and seeing other people's creativity.  You'll need to pick three fabrics - a white or cream for the background, and two reds or two blues (or a red and a blue).  You background fabric can be low volume, white on white, or even just mostly white.  If you think it is appropriate for the background, go for it!  If you have a question about whether a fabric will work or not, the answer is yes!  Go ahead and use it :)  

Cutting:  Cut 2 8.75" squares from your background fabric, and 1 8.75" square each from your two colored fabrics.  Here are mine:

Sewing:  You're going to make 4 half square triangles that finish 8" square.  

1.  Draw a line from corner to corner on the wrong side of your white or cream fabric:

2.  Place each white square right sides together with a colored square and sew 1/4 inch or a scant 1/4 inch on each side of the line.  Cut on the marked line, press, and square them up to 8".  I am a weirdo and I like pressing towards the light side.  I love to see that perfect quarter inch showing through the lighter fabric.  But you should press your favorite way, whatever that may be :).  Here are my 4 HSTs:

3.  Arrange your HSTs into an hourglass design and sew into a block - it will measure 15.5" square.  You can point whichever color you want inwards.  I made my blues kiss, but you can do either!  Here's mine:

4.  Make 4 new cuts.  Each cut should be 2.5 inches from the center seam of the block.  In the photo below, the yellow markup represents the center seams, and the blue lines represent where to cut.  It doesn't have to be perfect, just get that rotary cutter rolling 4 times :).  

This is what my block looked like after I cut it up:

5.  Rotate each of the pieces in the 4 corners 180 degrees.  This photo is marked with a green X in each of the 4 corners.  Those are the pieces you'll rotate:

Here is what mine looks like as I rotate the corners:

6.  Sew your 9 pieces together just like you would a 9-patch.  I like to nest my seams, but you can do it your favorite way!  The final block will measure 14.5 inches square, but don't feel like you need to square it up.  Here is a picture of my finished block:

When you put the blocks together, they make a beautiful secondary pattern, like this:

I can't wait to see what my quilt will look like!  Thank you so much for sewing this block for me.  

With love,

Meg from Alabama 💗