Hen & Chicks September Block 4 - Mrs. Brown's Choice

 

I played around with the layout on this one quite a bit. There are so many different color arrangements to try out. Eventually I settled on hot pink star points with everything else in a black print with pink swirls. 

This is another set of Rolling Stone like snowball blocks. Traditionally it starts with a square on point with one of those 7/8 inch measurements.  I hate those!  I get that the flip and sew triangles lead to a bit more waste, but they avoid those tricky measurements, so I feel that it is worth it. 

Draw a line across the diagonal of all the small squares. Start with a small pink square in the corner of 4 black squares and sew on the drawn line before flipping, pressing and trimming.  

Add another pink triangle adjacent to the first. Sew, flip, press and trim. 

These will form the points of the center star.  

Rotate the black square and add a white square to the third corner. Sew, flip, press trim... same as before. 

Getting tedious yet?  Just one mor to go!

Here are your 9 subunits. 4 snowballs, 4 HSTs and the center square. 

The arranging is always the fun part. Point all the triangle points toward the center square and then fill the corners in with the HST units with the dark points facing in. 

Sew the nine patch and press away from the snowball units. That is where the bulk of the seams are and the trick is to get them to lay as flat as possible. 

Hen & Chicks September Block 3 - Chained Star

 

How many variations on an Ohio Star can there be?  Here is just one more, because I can't pass up a quilt block with a lovely chain through the center in terms of secondary patterns

I am focused on dark fabrics this month, but I keep finding black prints and then pulling out punchy accent colors.  

Layer your two large square right sides together and draw a line along the diagonal. 

Go ahead and layer your two strip sets at the same time so that you can sew it all up in one trip to the sewing machine. 

Sew on either side of the drawn line in of the square and sew your two strip sets together.  

Cut your HST units along the diagonal and press with the seams going toward the dark fabric. 

Layer your HST units with dark and light alternated and draw another center line. 

Sub cut your strip sets into segments with the same width a your initial strip. 

Sew your twosies into four patches

Sew again on either side of your drawn line

Press your QST and four patch units. Trim dog ears. 

The layout is just an Ohio Star with a colored center and then four patches in each corner. If you were making an entire quilt, you could use contrasting colors along the two diagonals and then replace the solid center square with a four patch combining both fabrics. I didn't do that here, because it doesn't make as much sense in a single block. 

This one is pretty sharp in darker colors. Classics remain popular for a reason. 

Hen & Chicks September Block 2 - Quatrefoil

 So here is my confession, this whole Rainbow Scrap Challenge thing that I do is really just a quest for new inspiration. I am always on the lookout for my next project or block. I was happy to stumble across this Quatrefoil block on Crazy by Design and knew that it would work perfectly for Hen & Chicks. Most of the information that I found about the block was from Missouri Star Quilt company, but there were enough other references and history of the block available that I felt OK to post it here. There are some great Youtube videos, but most of the Missouri Star blocks are just so BIG compared to what I usually do.  Giant blocks are great for finishing quilts fast, but that it no longer my goal at this stage in my quilt journey. 

This is a block that would be great for an entire quilt. Just one great focus patterned print with a few different accent colors would come together beautifully, The accent colors would create a great secondary pattern in multiple blocks. 

I chose two different accent colors here, but you could also use the same one instead. It all depends on what is in your scrap bin. Yellow would have also worked with the floral that I chose to use. Having two shorter strips makes sewing the four patches go smoothly, but you could make them both out of the same color, which is what I chose to do for the smaller block. 

Start with flip and sew corners on the focus fabric. Draw a line from corner to corner along the diagonal of your small background square. Sew on the drawn line and flip and press.  

Do this on all four of your focus fabric squares. 

Then repeat for the adjacent corner. Go ahead and sew your strip sets together on one of your trips to the sewing machine, and press away from the background fabric.  

Sub-cut your strip sets to make pairs of twosies which you will sew together into four patches.  

Press the four patches, swirling the seam to help them lie flat.  Now for the fun part!

With two colors, place the accent color which matches the center square closest to the center square. this gives you the look of a larger square peeking out from behind the edges which is quite nice. I just now noticed that one of my corner squares is rotated the wrong way. I must have fixed that while I was sewing, because it looks fine in the finished block. 

Now sew your nine patch together and press away from the corner four patches which have the most bulk.  I like this one a lot, it will go on my short list for future projects!

Hen & Chicks September Block 1 - Spiky Star

 

I have seen lots of versions of this star out there, so I am not sure to whom to attribute it. I feel like Bonnie Hunter did it as a leader and ender challenge at some point in the past. I also found a Lori Holt tutorial on You tube with a more controlled version which is what sparked my memory. I have a quirky fun quilt in Virginia with spiky wonky stars together with shoofly blocks that I just love. Wonky is a relaxing way to sew, but you can also do this more traditionally if that is what you prefer. 

Start with one center square and 8 background squares all of the same size.  Add in an assortment of smaller squares in a range of sizes. I happen to have a drawer full of 2 inch squares that I pulled from, but you should use whatever you have on hand. 

Place a square into one corner four of the background squares. You can draw a line of course, if you care about perfect consistent points, but I chose to be free and wing it!

When sewing, you can sew corner to corner along the diagonal, or any straight line closer to the corner. I tried to use a variety of distances to vary the spike size of the finished block. As long as the flip and sew triangle will cover the corner, then it is good. Make sure that your seams are straight though, that part is important

Flip and press. Depending on the seam that you sewed, you might have some amount of extra fabric extending beyond the edge of the original square. Trim everything even with the base square. 

Then trim away the extra layer of fabric to leave just the spike. You can use scissors or a rotary cutter as the seam allowance is no longer critical.  

Repeat this process with the other spike. 

Now you have 4 pieces with 2 spiky points each along with background and your center square. 

Arrange the spikes around the center square and fill in with background corner squares. 

Sew as a nine patch, pressing away from the spikes. One of the nice things about this block is that it doesn't have any points along the outside edges to try to match. That does leave quite a bit of blank space though, which would be fun to fill with some extra flip and sew triangles in the outer corners if you were making a full quilt. 

 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Finally Some Orange

 

I finally sewed some orange scraps. I decided to try adding some orange and purple to the churn dashes. It is a tertiary colors theme.  How are your oranges coming along?

ScrapHappy Saturday - August flies by

Can it almost be September?  Fortunately there are still 3 months left in the year to catch up with orange, because not a stitch has been sewn. The beginning of a new school year can be that way. I am so glad that I had a big spree before going back to finish up all of the Hen & Chick blocks. Things will calm down soon enough. For now, I am so excited to put my new desk together so that I at least have a place to put my sewing machine. Everything is just piled up on the ironing island. 

The old desk looks great in Sydney's new apartment. She swears she is still unpacking and everything will find a home soon enough. She has a lot of stuff!

Sydney did send me a first day of school photo completely unprompted.  What a sweetheart.

I did have a bit of time last weekend to rough cut some t-shirts for an NC State quilt that I am making for a friend of a friend. I might pull out the ironing press this afternoon if I can clear off the space by getting things put away again. Wish me luck!

Kurt was in Virginia this week. We are getting central air put in and so he took out the window AC unit that was installed in the middle of a wall in the family room.  

Rather than trying to match the vinyl siding on the back of the house, we replaced it with wood siding to match the front on the house. Much more of the log cabin vibe we were looking for. There is a chimney from the old propane stove that we might take out next and we can do the same siding swap there. We aren't ready to just redo the entire house, but it is a project we can do in chunks. 

A giant sugar maple tree fell down and broke the railing on our freshly finished new deck. He was able to replace that while he was up this week. 

I had already cut plenty of firewood, so our neighbor is going to take the wood to stock up for the winter. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Orange and Scrappy

I didn't expect to get much sewing done on the first week of school.  I was right! I made some nice progress on the borders to the hexie quilt while watching the last of the Olympics last weekend.  Then hurricane Sydney descended upon the house and brought chaos.  First was the storage of everything we were going to move into her new apartment.  Next came the selective rotation of furniture that would go with her to her new apartment.  I encouraged her to take the desk that matches her bedroom set. It was white and the rest of my sewing room has rustic brown furniture. That is all fine. My new desk will show up on Monday. Then she took my favorite overstuffed brown leather chair.  The one where I sit when I stitch hexies or bindings.  That is a tragedy! So, I might have to steal a chair from somewhere else after the desk gets set up next week.  Until then, I will try to do some organizing. Everything in the house is a bit of a mess! 

The first week of school was lovely.  So many new faces and excited children. Lots of new teachers as well and two new faces in administration. I am sure that it will all seem normal before long, but for now, everything is fresh and shiny new. Exhausting though!  It is always an adjustment getting back into a full-time working routine again. Usually they let us start with a short week to dip our toes, but this week it was a full five right off the starting blocks. I might sneak in a bit of a nap today.  

I hope your oranges are going well so far.  Cutting and organizing in my orange bin is on my list.  The cheery orange basket still waits patiently.  Isn't that the best part about scraps?  
 

ScrapHappy Saturday

And not an orange scrap was sewn... 

 I've been busy working to finish up my hexie diamond quilt and am so excited to be starting the borders. Top and bottom are all clear in my mind, but the sides are going to take some decision making. Because the diamonds are staggered, the edges are even. Should I fill in with partial diamonds, try to complete the pattern or just use background fabrics to straighten it all up? So many decisions! Fortunately, with anything hand stitched, there is plenty of time to ponder choices. Kids will be back in school on Monday! It was fun to be back with teachers again and catch up after the summer, but school is always so much more fun with students.