January Blocks

Wow, January 9th already, Happy New Year Bees Knees!  Oh how I ummed and aaaarrrr'd over what block to use, which fabrics to use, but I did come to a decision in December and was happily cutting and doing trial blocks just to be sure.  So without further ado, I present to you the Hourglass block.  There are great examples of inspiration here (thanks to Red Pepper Quilts) and here (courtesy of Sew Mama Sew).

It all started with these fabrics ...  Then I finally decided on a sort of pink lemonade colour, with a dash of lime!

I've got a package of four white on white squares and four patterned fabric squares heading their way across the sea to you all as of the morning. 

They vary in designer, a little Erin McMorris, Amy Butler and some Kaffe Fassett just for variety!

So here's the request,  I know there is plenty of tutorials out there of how to do Hourglass blocks, I thought I'd show you how I've done mine.  But please feel free to use whatever technique you feel comfortable with.

All of your squares are cut to 7 3/4", and all they need is probably a quick press (no steam, they've not been washed).  I pressed a white and a patterned square right sides together, then drew a line diagonally across on the white square  (just a plain and simple pencil)...

I then sewed 1/4" down each side of the pencil line ...

it should then look like this ...

I then cut right down the middle between the two stitched lines on the pencil line ...

Pressed my seams to the patterned fabric...

to create two half square triangles.

I placed on HST right sides together on top of the other so that each side was a pattern and white triangle touching each other...

Butting up the seams so that they sit snugly together...

I pressed them like this just to hold them together better...

And took my ruler and pencil and drew a line diagonally across the HST like this ...

once again, I sewed 1/4" down each side of the pencil line..

I cut down the middle of the two sewn lines of stitching right on the pencil line..

And pressed the seams to one side.

One pair of square will yield you two Quarter Square Triangle blocks ...

I trimmed each block to 6 1/2", using the ruler to ensure it is squared from the centre...

Rotated the block and trimmed the other side...

I repeated the process for the other 3 pairs of white and patterned fabrics to get 8 QST blocks...

I laid out my blocks so there are four different patterned QST blocks to make an Hourglass block

I joined them into pairs to sew them with 1/4" seam ...

and pressed the seams to the patterned fabrics...

to join the 2 sets of pairs together, I butted up the seams and secured with a pin ...

Sewed them together and pressed the seam to one side....

And now you have one 12 1/2" Hourglass block.  Repeat to make another block, and I'd love you to try to put the colours in a different order so the blocks are different  :)  You all have a different selection of fabrics, so hopefully no two blocks will be exactly the same. 

A long post, I know, thanks for sticking with me! 

Have fun!  Happy Quilting!

Trudi