Saturday, August 1, 2015

Hive 5 August Tutorial - Kaleidoscope Quilt Block

Hi All - August is such a bittersweet month for me - it signifies the end of all-day sewing sessions but brings the excitement of starting a new school year!  For this month's block I'd like you all to try out the Kaleidoscope Quilt Block by Holly DeGroot at  Bijou Lovely.  Her tutorial is very well written, so take just a moment to familiarize yourself with the block before I get into specifics!  


This block  finishes at 16.5" square, but you only need 5 colorways or different pieces of fabric to complete the block:  navy, mustard, tangerine, mint, and white/low volume.  

As you can see, I choose a couple different fabrics for each color, but you can definitely stick to using just 5 fabrics if you aren't in the mood for scrappy.

Sorry for the bad lighting - its been raining non-stop this week!
Here are the way the colors match up with the cutting directions in the tutorial:

Piece A is the tangerine color :  2 - 3" squares
Piece B is the mustard color: 2 - 3" squares
Piece C is the mint color :  2 - 5" squares
Piece D is the navy color:  4 - 8.5'' x 2.5" rectangles
The background is the low volume/white (feel free to mix it up or use one or the other)
4 - 3" squares
2 - 5" squares
4 - 2.5 " squares
4 - 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles
4 - 2.5" x 6.5" rectangles

Holly gives her directions for making one quadrant of the block at a time, but I chain peiced mine and it went very fast!  Just make sure you watch your triangles so that the tangerine is on the outside and the mustard is on the inside! I also turned of my mint HST the wrong way and had to do a little seam ripping! :(


Here are my finished blocks.  I made one that is coordinated and one that's scrappy! I love how both turned out!


Before I could start taking pictures, I had to do some rearranging, which meant putting some of my unfinished projects away - back into their ziploc bags.  As you can see below, they look pretty pitiful sitting on the little cart.  

How do you store your UFOs or WIPs?  Or, are you a quilter who has the willpower to work on only one project at a time?  
Let me know if you have any questions - I can't wait to see your finished blocks!
Thanks,
Emily

No comments: