Swoon Along

I was really intrigued by this block as part of the Swoon pattern by Camille Roskelley. I had seen many quilters I admire tackle it and I decided I wanted to try it myself. I chose Loopy Vintage Floral in brown, Carrie in green (both Jennifer Paganelli) & Plaid in cream (Tanya Whelan Sugar Hill). My goal was to finish one block and if it was too much for me, it would be a pillow or wallhanging. This block is 23 1/2", so it could definitely stand alone. I purchased & downloaded the pattern here and began my cutting. There is A LOT of cutting and cutting the 7/8" for the half square triangles threw me off at first, but now I've got the hang of it. My new goal since I made one block and enjoyed it is to make a quilt for my bed for the summer. I'd like to hand quilt around each star and then machine quilt the rest. I figured if I sew one block a week and when finished hand quilt each week one star, that would be 18 weeks which brings me to the summer. Perfect timing if I can keep up that pace! So, in other words, the block is not quick, but so satisfying! It is truly addicting because it takes patience and care and you just grow to love it in the end! If you are up for the Swoon Along hosted by Katy you can join the flickr group as well to be inspired and there are lots of forums for questions there as well that are really helpful!

Scrappy Star Block

This one was a doozy, but so much fun! It took me a few tries to get the chevron piecing correct. I didn't understand how to do it, so jumped in and was fine until I realized that I forgot the part in the directions that said draw a line for half from the left corner & the other half from the right, so all my chevrons were going the same way. An easy fix, just redid those parts. This block did remind me, however, why I don't do many star blocks as I inevitably cut off some of the points and I don't want to go back and fix it! Luckily, this block is so busy that if you aren't looking for errors, you won't see it. I love the slices I got from some of the fabrics~ like Santa and the cookie. I squeezed in Anna Maria Horner's Needleworks fabric slicing it a bit bigger so you could see the motif. Onto block 5. It's not too late to start the quiltalong!