Week 1 #ScrappyChurnDashQAL

Welcome! Today we will be making one pattern. This pattern will be used 4 times in the corners. Yup, we are making the churn dash corners this week.

Supply List:

• rotary cutter
• matching thread
  • Light to match the neutrals
  • Blue to match the blues
• Fabric and scraps
  • This week we will be using the larger scraps with great variety.
  • I recommend at least 6 or more variations of blues.
  • I recommend at least 6 or more variations of neutrals.
• Cutting Mat
• Rulers
  • Standard cutting ruler you always use
  • and the Easy Angle Ruler if you have one
• Frixon pen for marking if you do not have the Easy Angle Ruler or Seam Tape on the bed of your machine
• Fresh rotary blade
• New needle (I recommend 90/14)

These instructions will give two ways to get to the same point. We will call these methods. This weeks methods will involve cutting instructions for using the Easy Angle and cutting instructions for using the draw a line method in HST making. If you can get to the same point with a different method, feel free to use what works for you.

Method 1 HSTs Easy Angle Method

• Step one cut a variety of blue and neutral strips that measure 4 1/2 inches.
• Step two, with right sides together, align the black tip of the Easy angle ruler hanging off the fabric, and the 4 1/2 inch line on the fabric.
• Step three, make your cut on the 45 degree edge of the ruler as well as making sure the 90 degree edge is trimmed as well.

• Step 4, spin your ruler edge around to align with the fabric edge on the 45. Again have the point hang off one edge and align with the 4 1/2 inch mark on the ruler. Cut on the 90 to get another pair of fabrics cut.

• Step 5, using a scant 1/4 inch seam allowance, sew on the long edge of your cut pairs of fabrics. Ensure that these are still right sides together. No need to disturb the set. Just cut and sew.

• Step 6, finger press seam of HST to the dark side. Using a square ruler, verify your square measures 4 1/2 inches. Trim as necessary.
• Step 7, repeat steps 1 through 6 until you have achieved twelve 4 1/2 inch HSTs.

Method 2 Draw a line

• Step one, cut a variety of neutral and blue squares that measure 5 inches.
• Step two, on the neutral square draw a line corner to corner

• Step three, sew a scant 1/4 inch on each side of the drawn line. You can also skip drawing the line and use your seam tape.
• Step four, cut your sewn square in half on the drawn line.

• Step five, finger press your HST seam to the dark side.
• Step 6 trim your HST to measure 4 1/2 inches square. (Note: For each pair of squares will result 2 HSTs.)

Block BOM

Each block you will make will require (remember you are making 4 corners so repeat this BOM three more times):

• 3 HSTs of a blue and a neutral that measure 4 1/2 inches square
• 3 neutral squares that measure 4 1/2 inches square
• 3 blue squares that measure 4 1/2 inches square

Layout as a 9 patch

With right sides together sew your squares in 9 patch fashion. Press however you wish. I chose to spin my seams so the first row the seams were pressed outward. On the inner row, the seams were pressed towards the center block, and the 3 row was pressed just like the first row, pressed outward.

And Voila, you have a corner block. Repeat this process 4 times and make all your corners. Your finished block should measure 12 1/2 inches and will be 12 inches in the quilt.

If you are interested in following along, hop on over to my youtube channel and see my video. I am linking my playlist for this quilt along for ease of access to all the blocks/videos. You can also follow me on instagram to get some lovely short videos and pictures of my progress. Don’t forget to use the hashtag #ScrappyChurnDashQAL and post pictures in social media so I can find your lovely blocks/progress.

If I have confused you in any way, please reach out to me in the comments section on any of my social media links and ask for clarification. It may need to be fixed for everyone (gulp). Yup, I am not perfect, but want you to have the best quilting experience you can with this quilt along.

Not sewing along? That is alright too. We all have projects at different points and we certainly live a life as our own. Please share this blog post as well as all my communications in social media. That will help me out to grown and become a better quilter (and better at the tech side).

And Thank you for reading my blog!

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Scrappy Churn Dash QAL ~ fabric requirements

Blog #1 Fabric requirements Sept 10th, 2022

Blog #2 Churn Dash Corners Sept 24th, 2022

Blog #3 Churn Dash block Oct 1, 2022

Blog #4 Section A2 Oct 8, 2022

Blog #5 Section A3 Oct 15, 2022

Blog #5 Section B1 Oct 22, 2022

Blog #6 Section B4 Oct 29, 2022

Blog #7 Section C1 Nov 5, 2022

Blog #8 Section C4 Nov 12, 2022

Blog #9 Section D2 Nov 19, 2022

Blog #10 Section D3 Nov 26, 2022

Finale Sew it all together with borders Dec 3, 2022

Hello folks! Welcome to the Churn Dash Quilt Along! In this instruction I am deciding on the weekly blocks. I know none of the list above makes a bit of sense above, but today and always you can come and refer back to this page as it will never go away! As promised I am stating fabric requirements in this blog post as well as the dates for all the posts. This is a weekly quilt along, meaning instructions will be given out weekly. Does this mean you have to sew all your blocks in a week? The easy answer is no, sew at your own pace, make the blocks whatever week you wish, or whatever fits your schedule. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can refer back to it regularly. I will link each instruction as it comes out to this post. So as time transpires, the blocks will all be linked here in one place with build instructions at the linked page.

I will always link my instagram account and my youtube channel to this blog so you can get it all here. I will also link this blog in instagram, youtube, and to the Quilt Space App so everything is all criss-crossing in social media so it will be easier for you to pick and choose how you want to quilt along. If you are a visual learner, you may want to head to youtube. If you like very detailed text instructions, this may be the right place for you.

Fabric requirements:

I was shocked how much fabric will go into the quilt. The calculator in EQ8 gave the fabric requirements, and I think it estimates high. But if it is one thing us quilters have, its fabric. So, shop your stash and scraps. And remember as you scrap along with this quilt along, if you run out of a neutrals or blues, you can always add to this as you sew your blocks. That is the real beauty of this scrappy quilt along. Use what you have and if it is not enough, buy more and add to it at any time!

These neutrals I eliminated because of the saturation of another color. When I stand greater than 6 ft from these pieces, they are no longer white. The red and white becomes a weird pink. And of course the print on the blue and white, you see blue from across the room, not white.

For your neutrals (backgrounds), you will need 5 1/2 yards of various whites, off whites, ecrus, tans, light grays, or very light pastels. Do you need to stick to my plan of fabric choices? Absolutely not. You can use black fabric as your back ground if you wish. Having a large variety of prints for this will make it look nice and scrappy. My plan is to create each block as it’s own mini quilt. This may just use two colors of fabrics or up to 16 fabrics. Use your scraps wisely.

And for your blues (or whatever color you decide), you will need 4 1/2 yards of scraps or yardage. Make sure you have many colors of blue, probably more so than your neutrals. I designed this quilt and used 33 different fabrics. Let’s look closely at hue of color for a moment.

It is probably a good idea to just make a huge fabric pull of blues, and segregate them into categories. Dark blue like navy blues, country blues, gray blues, and so on. Ultimately it is your quilt, but you may want to refrain from pastel blues as this will wash out with the neutrals. It may be possible depending on your fabric pull if you could sneak teals, or turquoise in, but this is where your camera can come in handy. Make your color fabric pull, take a picture, and then turn it black and white. See how well the values of your fabrics play together using that feature. If there is something that just looks amiss in that black and white photo, probably a good idea to eliminate it from your quilt. As a rule of thumb, whatever color you decide for your churn dash, get a paint swatch that matches the color you want at the hardware store. The swatches are free. You can then go darker by a couple colors, or lighter by a couple colors. But you really want to stick to the darker fabrics in the scale on your swatch.

The lower right hand corner, I may eliminate that one as well as the blue and white stripe. These can impact the design of each block because of the small pieces.

There is a floral above on the 4th fabric from the left. I will either use that on the larger pieces, or not use it at all.

Colors I do not recommend using with neutrals? Yellow. Yellow will be up against tans and grays and may get washed out. You can use yellow if you are using a dark background like blue or black.

This would be so much fun to do as a rainbow, and for those of you quilters who are experienced enough, go for it. Those of you who are not there in your quilting hobby, just pick two colors that compliment one another.

Can you use a designer line for this quilt along? You might be able to do that. I know that Lisa Bonegean has great blue bundles and great red bundles. Her colors are very close together in color saturation, so your blocks might get washed out.

Lets talk volume of fabrics. Many of these blocks have very small pieces. If you have a beautiful blue floral print and the flowers are white, if the flowers are larger than 1/2 inch, you may not want to use that fabric on the smaller pieces. Have you ever seen a quilt that the piecing just happened to have a coordinating color in the neutral fabric placed next to the color fabric and bam, when you step back from the quilt, it looks weird, like the block was constructed wrong? Volume of fabrics is important. Not saying you cannot use it period, but save those pieces for the larger scraps in this quilt. Having a good variety of solids, polka dots, plaids, and prints will make the quilt sparkle with color.

The tools I recommend using:

You can utilize the following tools. But use what works best for you. I know every one has a different method for making a covered corner, HST, or even a triangle in a square. For some blocks I will provide templates. I recommend the following:

• the Easy Angle ruler for HSTs.
• The companion angle ruler for QSTs.
• The Folder Corners ruler for the folded corners.
• The Tri-Recs ruler for triangle in a square.

All of these will allow you more accurate piecing and get the job done faster. (I will provide foundation papers to cut all irregular pieces with a normal ruler.) All of these tools are linked to Amazon so you can see the pricing (no I am not affiliated, and no I do not make money from any of this). The priciest is the Folded Corners. You are more than welcome to draw a line on your squares and get the same result. Do you have to purchase rulers….no. My instructions will give at least two ways to get where you need to. One way may use more fabric than the other, so if your scraps are small, you may want to think about some of these rulers.

And lastly, ladies and gentlemen, please be kind. This is my first quilt along. I am human and can error. I will do my best to go forth accurately. This is a huge undertaking. I work a 40 hour job, and my weekends are filled with chores. Do I know what time I will make the post each Saturday until it is done? Nope. Like I said, I will do my best, be we all know life can get in the way, so I will be a graceful as possible in a normalcy of posts. But know, I may need to fudge a bit.

As promised here is the coloring page for you to determine your colors. If you are going rainbow, you can print this sheet out as many times as you need and play with crayons, map pencils, or markers.

churndashDownload

And so I can find you, if you are on pinterest, instagram, or youtube and are sewing along, please post your photos with the following hashtag: #ScrappyChurnDashQAL

I will enjoy seeing all your blocks! Youtube does have a function that you can post pictures. If you have a youtube account use that and don’t forget the hashtag. You can also upload your photos to pinterest. I will be looking for you!

Please do not stress about this quilt along, and please if I have not made something crystal clear comment in social media and let me know and I will fix it.

Let the scraps fall as they may! And thank you for reading my blog!

A Barbara Bag!

Well, I tried something new, and I liked it! I made a Sallie Tomato bag and I loved the process. I made the pattern called The Barbara Bag and I love how it turned out! The zippers really impressed me, because it turned out very professional looking. I think my fabric selection was spot on. The cons about this bag was my inexperience. The stabilizer in the handle should have been glued not fused, so that is somewhat not what it should be. It is still usable, and I will make this bag again with the takeaways of the first go round.

It is just the right size for me. Could it be better? Yeah, I used my little featherweight for most of the stitching and then finally got out my Janome with the walking foot at the very end while sewing the handle. Next bag will have a brown handle. You can purchase paints to paint the faux leather edges which might improve the look of the handle. That is why next time I will go brown. When sewing vinyl, you are supposed to use polyester thread. Went and got some at the LAQS and I recall the last time I purchased this thread it was for hand sewing. My featherweight hated this thread! My featherweight is not persnickety so I was surprised. I did use this with the Janome and it made no different to that machine. I debated tossing the thread all together because it was so problematic. I did have it on a thread stand, and it would shred frequently. Because it was loosely spiral wrapped thread as it would unwrap it would twist and get caught around the featherweight’s first eyelet in the thread guide. That caused it to shred. Plus the stabilizers I used gummed up the needle, and then realized I needed to change the needle again. I was surprised for less than 2 hours of sewing on that needle it was gummed up. Go figure….like I said earlier my takeaways for this bag were priceless and will make my next bag more SPOT ON.

Lets see how many goals I met that I set last week….

• Work on building the Barbara Bag (purchased thread today to sew some vinyl) done!
• Work on customer quilt (a finish would be a plus) Did not finish, but almost halfway!
• Find the right fabrics and zippers for the ncw Still undecided
• Find matching thread for the pillowcase and lace marriage Not done
• Pull fabrics for a dragon scales baby quilt Done see below!
• Try not to let my 40 hour paying job wear me out (it wears on my patience and poops me out most days) Left work early with a headache, although not job related

So, not too shabby, I was able to mark stuff off the list, so that is good!

Here is the green pull of fabrics for the next baby quilt.

I think I am going to set all projects aside for the time being, minus these greens. I will try to get moving on this. The window to make is closing fast, the baby is due in November.

I have been busy writing my first post on the Scrappy Churn Dash QAL. Boy howdy, that is work! I am thinking I am not going to be able to keep up with other stuff while I do this, because writing patterns is hard, and doing it for several platforms will be thrice the work! This will offically kick off on Sept 10, 2022. If you will be sewing along, I will try to post early each Saturday. But I also ask you give me a bit of grace because life happens, and I may not be as timely on some Saturdays!

My plan for the weekend was to get the customer quilt off the frame, but this week the weather has really messed with my head. I was unusually very tired all week, and then yesterday I ended up with a nose bleed. And today I have a very bad sinus headache. When I woke up with it, I knew it would be a long day. I went in to work thinking just being in the normal schedule of things it would improve. It did not. So, I suppose I am tired, and resting will help me this weekend. If my headache is gone in the morning, I will be quilting away in the garage. We have had rains which have cooled us back down into the 80s again which is prime quilting weather!

I picked up my winnings from the quilt hop, and I was blown away. The vendors left me one thing I spied that I wanted, but did not want to spend $40 on it.

Precut hexagons, can you believe that? And a Halloween charm pack. I also received a $25 gift certificate for quilting services. This is $75 worth of stuff. Wow! I feel so lucky. 🙂

As I write this, my head pounds, so I will end this. Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog!