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October 21, 2015 By VineLines 1 Comment

DIY Block Design Blog Tour

DIY Block Design ebook

You’ll remember a couple of weeks ago I featured Alyce Blyth of Blossom Heart Quilts in my Quiz a Quilter series.  She’s running a blog tour as part of the launch of her DIY Block Design e-Book and I’m very pleased to be a part of the tour today.

I love HSTs and all the ways they can be used.  My first pattern, which is with testers at the moment, comprises a centre panel made up entirely of HSTs.  So, I decided the block I was going to design needed to use HSTs.  I also really love blocks that have a secondary pattern when repeated so I tried to incorporate that into my block.

I sat down and started sketching.  I love the Sew Easy Imperial Graph Paper – it makes it easy to draw up your block to size, as well as draw it in different scales.  It was using this that I was able to create the 6½” version and see what it would look like as a repeat.

On the right: my original 12½" block. On the left; the 6½" version on repeat.

On the right: my original 12½” block.
On the left; the 6½” version on repeat.

Can you see how it’s got a border – 1″ (finished) on the 12½” sized block?  If I were making a full quilt out of it, I would actually make it as a 10½” block and use 2″ (finished) sashing strips.

Here’s my finished block – I couldn’t help fussy cutting the centre square!

My Finished Block - do you like the fussy cutting?

My Finished Block – do you like the fussy cutting?

You can see that it’s made up of four HST units and strips.  When I make my HSTs, I don’t draw a line down the middle.  Instead, I put a piece of washi tape at the ¼” line on my sewing machine.

This line at the ¼" mark help you line up the seam and negate the need to draw a line on the fabric.

This line at the ¼” mark help you line up the seam and negate the need to draw a line on the fabric.

You can see in the picture below how the fabric lines up.

Sewing Machine

My very favourite tool when trimming up my HST units is my Bloc_Loc Ruler.  They making squaring up sooo easy!  I’ve got a couple of different sizes as well as one for squaring up flying geese.  If you’re going to be making HST units a lot, I highly recommend them.  I also cut my original squares slightly larger than recommended – I like to have a tiny bit more to play with.  So, if a pattern asks me to start with 5″ squares, I’ll cut them at 5¼”.Bloc_loc Ruler

I had so much fun putting my designing brain into gear; I did some other sketches as well which I’m going to turn into a pattern.

Don’t forget to pop over to Cassandra Madge and Quilty Joy Joy today – they’re also participating in the tour; I can’t wait to see what they’ve designed.

What about you; what’s your favourite type of block design?  Have you been inspired by Alyce’s book?  I hope so!

Until next time, happy quilting. 🙂

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Quiz a Quilter – Samantha Green from For the Love of Fabric
Introducing Vine Lines Pattern Testing Agency

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  1. Beginning the Design Journey: Joy, Cassie and Linden | Blossom Heart Quilts says:
    October 22, 2015 at 3:38 pm

    […] from Vine Lines Quilting has really bloomed this year and I’ve loved watching her […]

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