Chris Dodsley @mbCD: The Mood

Sunday, 7 July 2013

Shattered Chevrons & Broken Arrow Blocks - Skill Builder BOM: June/FMQ

FMQ is now complete on my two June Skill Builder BOM blocks.

And here are the 2 latest blocks, which means I'm totally up-to-date and waiting, yes, actually waiting, for Alyssa @Pile O'Fabric to post the instructions for the July blocks!!!:

SHATTERED CHEVRONS BLOCK

Chain piecing HSTs

I'm about to trim my 2" HSTs only to discover my smallest Bloc-Loc is 2.5" :( - if you don't know what a Bloc-Loc is, check out my Bloc-Loc tute here.

64 trimmed HSTs

and here's the made-up block

I wanted to fmq the block really simply and appreciated that when Alyssa sent out the fmq suggested instructions, she felt exactly the same way. I just did my usual vermicelli/stipple fmq stitch over the grey background fabric and left the coloured areas alone.

It was quite difficult to fmq this block - there are so many layers of fabric at each point that it was tricky to smoothly sew right through them all.

And take a look at the back.

Kaffe Fassett - Lake Blossoms

BROKEN ARROW BLOCK

10 x 1.5" wide strips of foundation paper piecing

The finished block ready to fmq

And here it is fmq'd - again, kept it simple, just vermicelli/stippling on the background grey.

and a closer look at the back

Kaffe Fassett - Paisley Jungle

Do you know I think these two blocks are my absolute favourites? They were quite time-consuming, but there was nothing difficult or brain-aching about them, and the finished result is so pleasing - it would make great cushions covers.

And here's my progress so far - firstly laid out as the blocks will be in the final quilt:

secondly, with each row laid out next to each other to make a better photo:

and thirdly - how the back's looking, and it has to be said it's pretty scrummy to my way of thinking!

Oh, and before I forget, I don't know if any of you would even have noticed a change, but way back in April, I created a February block (yes, up until now, I've been way behind every month on this BOM!) called The Mood, here it is:

After I created this block, I decided that the whole quilt needed some sort of commonality to pull the whole thing together, so I've always quilted the grey background fabric with a vermicelli/stippling stitch. You might notice two sections of this block made from the background grey, yet I'd already done straight line quilting in a triangular spiral on each. In reply to Sonia @Fabric & Flowers' comment, I did say that I really wanted to redo these two quilting sections but that I'd hold fire until I was further on with the quilt to make my mind up for sure.

Well, this month, the time had come - when I laid all the blocks out together, these two sections were screaming at me so loudly that I couldn't bear it a moment longer and ripped them out and fmq'd right over them.

Here's how they look now - you can still see the original stitch lines slightly, but it's nothing that won't disappear when the quilt's finally washed. I feel sooooo much better now - the vermicelli/stippling has knocked those two grey sections right back, and the whole quilt looks a million times better, amazing how your eye can pick up on something and know it's not right even if you don't always know quite what it is.

Next Time: For July, I have absolutely no idea what we'll be making and for now, I'm just thrilled to be completely up-to-date, which has to be a first since this Skill Builder BOM began back in January!!!

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