Hive 1, February Tutorial: X Stripe Block for Rita

Hello Fellow-Bees!

I hope you’ll have as much fun sewing this block, as I had designing it.

I call this block ‘X Stripe Block’ and it's finished size is 11” x 14” –
with seam allowances: 11 ½” x 14 ½”.

Now, you are probably wondering, why this odd shape? 
Well, I intend to make another quilt for ‘Quilts for Care Leavers (Northern Ireland)’ out of these. Their requested ideal finished quilt size is 70” x 44” – so, you can do the math! 😉

Fabric Selection:

You’ll need 6 fabrics, light to dark,
from one of the colour families from the colour wheel.

Please use solid fabrics or fabrics that read as solid, e.g. blenders.

(Left over Jelly Roll strips come in handy for this, if you have any ...)

See several example fabric pulls, below.

Cutting:

From each of the 6 fabrics cut one strip: 2 ½” x 16 ½”

Block Assembly:

Arrange the strips from light to dark.

Sew the lightest strip to the second-lightest strip, right sides together, with a ¼” seam allowance. Press the seam open.

Sew the darkest strip to the second-darkest strip, right sides together, with a ¼” seam allowance. Press the seam open.

Take the lightest strip set:

Trim the second-lightest strip to be 2” wide, measured from the seam.

Take the darkest strip set:
Trim the second-darkest strip to be 2” wide, measured from the seam.

Take the lightest strip set:
Sew the 3rd-lightest fabric strip to the just cut edge (to the second-lightest strip), right sides facing, with a ¼” seam allowance. Press the seam open.

Take the darkest strip set:
Sew the 3rd-darkest fabric strip to the just cut edge (to the second-darkest strip), right sides facing, with a ¼” seam allowance. Press the seam open.

The strip sets should now be 6 ¼” wide each.

Press both Strip Sets in half width-wise, with the right sides facing. Match up the seams, so they lay on top of each other.

On the Light Strip Set:

Mark a point:
1” from the folded edge
and ¼” from the edge of the darkest strip.

On the Dark Strip Set:
Mark a point:
1” from the folded edge
and ¼” from the edge of the lightest strip.

On both Strip Sets:
Make a 45-degree cut:
aligning the 45-degree line of your ruler with the folded edge 
and so, that the cut is going through the marked point,
from here angling away from the folded edge.

Open up your strip sets and arrange them as in the picture below.

(You are swapping the middle parts.)

The easiest way to align the angled pieces for sewing them together, is to mark the ¼” seam allowance where the strip seams are, then pinning the angled edges right sides together, matching up those marked points on the strip seams.

 

On Both Strip Sets: 

Sew the side-Strip set pieces to the middle Strip set pieces, right sides together, with a ¼” seam allowance. Press seams open.

Nearly there!

Sew the resulting strip sets together, so that the narrow sides of the middle pieces meet.
Matching up the angled seams, sew the two strip sets together, right sides facing, with a ¼” seam allowance.
Trim the ‘dog ears’. Press the seam open.

Trim the resulting Block to 11 ½” x 14 ½”, with the middle seam running horizontal and the points where the angled seams meet, centered.
It might help to crease the middle between those two points for this purpose.

And the block is finished! Yay!

Thank you so much for sewing for me!

If you have any questions, give me a shout.

Happy Sewing,

Rita