WIP Wednesday - Moda Friendship blocks

At our Thursday night sewing group, some weeks ago, we decided to make a group project and chose to make blocks from Moda's Friendship Quilt-A-Long.  Moda released 31 blocks free to coincide with a blog hop showcasing the Moda designers.  All the blocks, except for this last one, have a light 3" centre where you can sign your name or showcase some favourite fabric.  This last block, number 31, is probably my favourite.  I love the colours that Paula chose for this hearts block.

As the blocks are only 9" finished we decided to make as many as we could between us.  Some of the blocks have quite a few pieces, approximately 2" and as you can see there is a bit of piecing in them.

I had block numbers 9 to 12 and then decided to do one more.  I used a mixture of Sunnyside by Kate Spain and Coquette by Chez Moi from layer cake 10" squares for my blocks.

Because there are so many small pieces, any inaccuracies in seam allowance builds up.  We ended up with 4 different sizes in the end between the 6 of us.  We all used different fabric ranges with a theme of Spring in mind and decided to sash the blocks to unify the whole quilt and help control the final size.

We auditioned a few fabrics but decided that Navy would work well with all the blocks.  So last weekend I cut 3" strips and chain pieced away.  Side pieces were 9.5" long and the top pieces were 14.5" long.

I kept the sashing on the large side so we have options in the layout.  Tomorrow night, we can have fun laying them out.  I love this bit, arranging, re-arraning and swapping around!  We could do a straight layout or an offset one and trim the borders back. 

This is my first group quilt and it has been tons of fun.  The blocks themselves need reading through first as I don't think there is any one of us that didn't have a problem at some stage.

If you want to try any of these Sylvia's Stitches has collated them all on her blog along with links to the designers they were allocated to.  Some of the designer links don't work anymore but the block links all work perfectly fine.  They are all sitting in a pile at home now and I can't wait to bring them to the group for the next stage of putting them all together!

Linking up to

Signature Blocks

I'm just back from a trip with work, and not having any new sewing done for over a week I thought I might share a project in progress with you and get back to quilting hopefully this evening!   Our Thursday night sewing group decided we would work on a group project.  It's fun to be making something with other people and seeing their fabric choices and choosing fabrics that might tie the whole thing together.  To start with we chose some free block patterns from Moda with fabric choices to suit a Spring feeling. 

Moda released instructions for over 30 9" blocks under the Signatures quilt-a-long and Friendship quilt-a-long and they are still available to download.  Slyvia's stitches has a neat listing where you can access the block instructions with links to the Moda designers who chose the blocks.  Not all of the links to the designers are still live and if you are making any of these, read the instructions through first, especially the cutting instructions! I don't think there were any of us who didn't make a mistake or end up with a block too small at some stage!

My first block was the Courthouse Steps designed for Deb Strain using her Seascapes range.  The centre of all the blocks uses a 3.5" square in a light coloured material and the idea is for the block maker to place a signature there.  Imagine a whole quilt of 9" blocks with signatures in the centre; a nice record of a group project.  We're choosing pretty fabrics instead but a fussy cut motif would be cool too.  I'm using some layer cake squares of Kate Spain's Sunnyside range with some leftovers of Coquette by Chez Moi.  Some of the other blocks have vibrant pink and green in them and I'm hoping these will work with the other blocks. 

As I was making the second block I thought wouldn't these be really cool as quilt labels for the back of a project, pieced in somewhere?  I just love this label on the back of a mini-quilt I received as a swap item by Christina DiMarco and every time I look at it, I think, I must make a better effort at labelling my quilts!