November BOM: Checker

Our November BOM is a block designed by Jess of Elven Garden Quilts for the Bee Hive. The Bee Hive is the brainchild of Alyce Blyth of Blossom Heart Quilts - it’s a year long series of block tutorials designed with online quilting bees in mind.

Checker block from The Bee Hive

Our color palette this month is a beautiful jewel-toned collection. Kona solid matches would be Lipstick, Mushroom, Bordeaux, Old Green, Everglade and Wheat.

Our November palette

The block we are doing is called Checker and the tutorial is on the Blossom Hearts blog. It’s a simple and speedy block to construct. When put together in groups, Checker can form many different secondary patterns, and for this reason it’s important to pay close attention to your fabric choices.

One example of a secondary pattern you can create when laying out these blocks

Shelly’s advice on constructing this block is:

• It’s important to make your rectangles from lighter colors
• Make your cross from your darkest color
• The half square triangles should be half dark and half light
• Placement of the half square triangles is important so pay attention to the photographs!

As usual there is a lovely bundle of curated fabric available at a 15% discount from Stitchcraft for guild members. Just ask at the counter!

We look forward to seeing your blocks in November. Remember, the more you make, the more chances you have of winning. These blocks will make a really stunning quilt for the lucky lottery winner!

We also look forward to seeing the completed quilts of previous winners at our Show & Tell. 

October BOM: Eastern Sunrise

Our October block is Eastern Sunrise. When all the blocks are sewn together it creates a striking braid pattern.

The color palette this is month is tequila sunrise.

This is a paper pieced pattern and is very easy to make.  It is important that the background is off-white or crème colored and that all places marked background (BG) are placed exactly as marked on the pattern to create the proper effect of the pattern.  Your pieced block will be reverse of the pattern.  Ellison Lane has a great paper piecing tutorial if you need help with paper piecing.

Please bring your finished block (or blocks!) to our meeting in October!

July Block of the Month

Our July BOM is appliqué circle blocks based on the demonstration that Shelly Recicar gave at our May meeting. This block actually combines Shelly's appliqué method with the strip piecing method demonstrated by Kate Yates in April. 

Our colors for July are the "freshly picked" palette – don't forget you can buy a lovely fat quarter bundle in those colors from Stitchcraft, with a special SFMQG discount of 15%! 

Shelly's demo blocks.

Shelly gave us a handout at the meeting with some written instructions for creating the appliqué circles block, but if you missed that meeting, or (like me!) misplaced your handout, here are the instructions for you!

1. Make a 10 inch background using the strip method demonstrated by Kate in April. There is a step by step tutorial available on her blog. 
2. Cut a 10 inch piece of light grey fabric. Trace a dessert plate or any other circular object on the back of the fabric. You want the background fabric to show.
3. If the circle is grey on your block, 
• Cut a large ¼ inch outside of your drawn line on grey fabric
• Trace the plate on poster board or a food box such as cereal box. Cut the circle on the line.
• Prepare fabric, using this tutorial.
4. If the circle is a color and the background is grey,



Freshly Picked, our July palette.

• Cut a large ¼ inch inside your line on the gray fabric. Clip from cut inside edge to seam line (¼ to ½ inch) . Do not cut through the seam line. Stop just short of the seam line.
• Trace the pattern on poster board or a food box. Cut the circle on the line. You will need the outside edge of the circle so go ahead and cut into the circle.  You will not be using it.
• Prepare fabric using this tutorial.
5. Sew circle onto background fabric using a buttonhole or zigzag stitch. Use grey thread that matches the fabric.  The circle can be placed anywhere on the fabric.  You can even place only part of the circle on the background and trim the excess off the block.
6. Trim block to 9 1/2 inches.

Many thanks to Shelly and Kate for the demos and instructions.

Don't forget, the more blocks you make the more chances you have to win. Let's hope Jennifer gives the rest of us a chance this month! LOL. Can't wait to see your blocks at the meeting on the 18th July!

New BOM Fabric Bundles

We have been having so much fun with our BOMs lately, haven't we? From what I've seen online, it seems like there will be enough French Macarons in this month's lottery for a king-size quilt!

We wanted to make the BOMs as usable as possible for the lucky winner, so going forward we are going to be choosing a color palette use each month. You can see the blocks, the colors, and links to tutorials, on our BOM page.

And now we are excited to announce that we have teamed up with the wonderful folks at Stitchcraft to put together fat quarter bundles in our monthly color palettes. Each bundle is made up of four fat quarters of modern designer quilting cottons especially selected with our BOM in mind. That's more than enough fabric to complete several blocks for the lottery, and have some left over! Every month there will be two options available. Below you can see the top two bundles which are June's palette of "flora hues", and on the bottom two bundles in July's palette of "freshly picked" hues.

Each bundle is available from Stitchcraft at the special discounted price of $10, which is more than 15% off the regular price. You can buy the bundles now - just ask the lovely ladies there to help you find them.

We hope these bundles will make it even easier for our members to participate in the BOM raffle, which has become a highlight of our monthly meetings. And what a great stash builder!

May 2015 Block of the Month

For our May 16th meeting we are working on a cute raw appliqué block called French Macarons.  It's a small block that comes together really easily.  It's proving popular and many of our members are going nuts with this!  Remember the more blocks you make, the more chances you have to win the block lottery.

The tutorial can be found on the Empire BOM blog, and we have not got a color theme this month, so go crazy with whatever you fancy!

Linda Johnson's four blocks

Here are my six bids for the win!

Charlotte Noll's bright blocks include some bees. 

These are only SOME of the many blocks that Ivy Bagnall made.

Carolyn Rhodes Miller picked some lovely background fabric.

We'd love to see all the blocks made by members - please drop by our Facebook Group and show us what you've done!

For information on upcoming BOMs head on over to our BOM page.