Friday, December 13, 2013

Stitchalong blocks

I hope you've finished stitching your 12 monthly ellyn's place stitchalong blocks! If not, no worries, you can always come back to this tutorial when you are ready. Today I'm going to show you how to make 5 inch wonky blocks from your little stitcheries. Ready? First off, you need a sashing fabric. If you want to use this same fabric later on for borders and binding, you'll need about a yard total. I've used solid bright pink here. Cut some 3 inch strips, width of fabric. I used 8 strips total. 

Remember that your stitchery blocks should already be cut to 4 1/2 inches square.

Sew strips to both sides of your stitcheries. I chain pieced the blocks to the strips and cut in between them after. Press the seam allowances (1/4") toward your strips.
Now even up your edges....
And add strips to the top and bottom the same way....
 Do this to all 12 of your blocks....
 Now we're going to cut these blocks down to 5 inches. I hope you have a 5 inch square ruler. That will make this process so much simpler! You could also cut a five inch square from template plastic or cardboard and trace around it onto your blocks. I used a five inch ruler. Tilt your ruler to make a wonky block. Make sure you leave at least 1/4 inch of the border fabric all the way around after cutting.
 see how cute it is all wonky?
Do this to all 12 blocks. I did all of mine tilted the same way. If you want your quilt really wonky you could tilt your ruler in different directions on each block. It's up to you!

Ok, that's enough for today! Once you have all of your blocks cut wonky, gather 13 coordinating charm squares and I'll show you how I joined mine in a few days.

Don't forget to add your blocks to our Flickr pool. 

2 comments:

Maria said...

Thanks Ellyn for the tut.. Still in Perth visiting sew have to stitch last block. Will come back over the festive season and do the blocks.

Melissa said...

I like the wonky look!