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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Threadheads Bee Block & Instructions

I chose a block I found in this awesome book full of ideas Block Party.

If you have the book I am looking at page 54, Sliding By, for my inspiration.  I like to look at the pictures, I'm not big on reading directions in these things.  So I ran into a couple of snags.  

These are the fabrics I am working with.  Most of these come from the Joel Dewberry line Aviary 2.  Very pretty.

This is what you'll get, a triangle and some strips of different widths, enough for 2 blocks.

This is the first strip attached to the long edge of the triangle.  The strips can go on in any order, and though the book has these strips some going wonky, I would like to keep them straight.  The different widths will be enough of a wonk for me on this one.   The first strip had to be pretty long.  I will send a few long so you can chose.

Now here comes the tricky part - I only half assed read the directions in the book.  I'm sassy like that.  There was something about freezer paper in there.  So I went out and bought freezer paper.  Do you know that not every store carries this, and sometimes the box isn't wide enough to use for a 12.5" block?  I actually used my 12.5" square ruler, but I supposed not everyone has 2 of those and here comes the freezer paper part.  I am sending you a 12.5" square of this stuff with a line down the diagonal.  You can line this up with the center sew line and then line up your next piece to be attached.  I tried to skip this step with my first block, and I discovered I added way too long of strips if I didn't line up with the square or the freezer paper.  So this step will save some fabric and some of you your sanity.  

Also, yeah, pin the next piece, because you'll remove the freezer paper and then the next strip just won't look like it's in the right place.  Please, learn from my errors.  I make them for you. 

I'm in a 'seams open' phase.  Please press your seams open, and if you would shorten your stitch length to 2.0 or so.  Thank you.  I was taught that, I don't use it much, buy my Mother may read this.  

Ok, all the strips are attached, and cut off the excess.  This is where a square will come in real handy, you can use the freezer paper as a template to carefully trim, if you can figure out how.  

Now somehow, I will figure out how the Sparrows fabric fits into this, I will just have to, you know, have more blocks to see how it looks on the wall.  Thanks peeps, you rock.  Or sew, whatever.  

3 comments:

Jennifer Mathis of Ellison Lane said...

Looking forward to making this! Thanks Mary!

Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts said...

Oh gads, this is lovely. *yeah*

Sarah said...

I'm trying to justify getting this book (Along with all the others!) this payday. How do you find the block instructions? I think what I'm asking really is this do you think this is it a quilting book o a coffee table book :)