Hi friends! It’s time for the January color challenge hosted by Jen of Patterns by Jen or PBJ!! If you are new to the challenge, as I am, this is how it goes. Each month Jen gives a color and provides a pattern. This month’s pattern and instructions can be found by clicking on the link above. Scroll down the page to find it. Many bloggers are participating, but each month a few will be featured. Those can also be found at the link above. You can then click through to see the other bloggers’ blocks! Some are even providing recipes as this year’s color inspiration is coming from fruits and veggies!
Since I was invited to a virtual retreat last week with some of my blogger friends, I used the day before as my prep day. Jen provides excellent cutting and stitching instructions in the pattern, but since I am addicted to my AccuQuilt GO!Big electric cutter and dies, I decided to try to do as many of my blocks as possible with my toys!
For the January block we are using the color purple (as some of you may know that IS my favorite color!!) and this month’s inspiration is the yummy eggplant! For my fabric I worked with Lauren at Bold Notion Quilting and she came up with a wonderful grunge fat quarter bundle for me! I also purchased the silver grunge for all my backgrounds. You can get this same bundle from her. Also, she gave a discount code for any of my readers to get 10% off your entire order from her shop (except for mystery boxes and thread of the month clubs) by using the code SongBird10. This is good until January 31st! So please check her out. She has all kinds of wonderful fabric, quilting rulers, even classes at Bold Notion Quilting. She also offers longarm quilting services.
Jen offers this pattern in 12 inch and 6 inch sizes. I am making the 12 inch size and used die #3 for the half-square triangles and die #5 for the quarter-square triangles in cutting this block. They are from my 12 inch Qube set. I purchased my cutter, a 2-1/2 inch strip die, and this 12″ Qube, many years ago when I taught a couple of classes at the American Embroidery Conference in West Palm Beach, FL. I have to say this is one of the best investments I’ve ever made. I use it a lot and have added to my die collection through the years. I pieced with Aurifil 50wt cotton thread. So without further ado, here is my January block.
This block was fun to make and with the help of my retreat friends and the internet, I learned to spin that center seam so it is really flat!
So hop on over to PBJ and get your free pattern and visit some of the other bloggers on the list. There are some gifts offered each quarter by some amazing sponsors as prizes for linking up your blocks.
Hi, Brenda! Two questions: First, I made a similar block to yours last week, but 5″ finished rather than 12″. I pressed my seam allowances clockwise and spiraled the center so it would lay flat. But my points are not matching as precisely as yours do in the center. I feel like I saw a tip for fixing that somewhere but of course I can’t remember where. Did you do anything special to get your center to come out so nice? Second, when I bought my GO! cutter it was during a promotion where it came with an 8″ Qube at a show special. I was disappointed that they wouldn’t let me swap it out for either a 6″ Qube that would be more useful for scrap-busting, or a 12″ Qube that would be more useful for making quilts that come together quickly. I thought I might add those other sizes later, but haven’t so far. “Santa” did bring me some of the Blocks On Board dies, like Cleopatra’s Fan, DWR and some of the interesting star blocks. My limited experience with my GO! cutter has been that I love it for cutting fiddly shapes like clam shells, apple cores, or tumblers or anything besides squares and triangles.
Hi Brenda! Beautiful eggplant purple block for this month. And those Grunge fabrics are just divine for this project. I still need to try the spinning seam thing – maybe I’ll remember when I get to sewing and pressing this. Happy Sunday! ~smile~ Roseanne
Hi Brenda, Love your purple block! I do not quilt, but I admire the work and expertise that goes into making quilts and your blocks and quits are always awesome.