The Marmite Block - Do You Love It Or Hate It?

The theme for the 1 November meeting of our NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild Block Lotto is Flying Geese.  This follows on nicely from my October Bee Blocks for Maria - Orderly and Liberated Flying Geese - making me a dab hand at stitching them up quickly.

What's a Block Lotto, I hear some of you asking?  Well, first of all, participation is optional, if you do choose to take part you get one raffle ticket for each block you enter into the Block Lotto.  When all entries are received a raffle ticket is drawn and the winner takes away all the blocks entered.

Let's get down to it - October Block Lotto instructions:

1: finished block must contain at least one flying geese unit;

2: at least one of the flying geese units in the block must be red; and

3: the finished block must be a 12.5" unfinished square.

Here is my finished block...

which I hate... 

or maybe I love...

I just can't make my mind up either way, this is the strangest feeling I've ever had making a quilt block.

Let's start this story again - this time with the block the other way up just so it doesn't feel quite so repetitive.

I pulled out my red scrap box to find fabric to make the block and right then and there I saw four 5" charm squares that I really dislike.  Do you have that, fabric in your collection that makes you uncomfortable, that you try not to look at, let your eyes move on quickly and hope the niggle inside you goes away?

If you don't like a fabric in your stash the first question is how did it come into your possession?

Mine was by way of a Flickr fabric charm swap.  Ever joined in one?  I've joined in two; one was strictly Kaffe Fassett fabrics - the organiser was strict about everyone's chosen fabrics and the resulting received charm pack was wonderful - well it couldn't be anything else as I loooove Kaffe Fassett.  My other swap was a Scrappy Fabric Charm Swap.  Now I know for some scrappy sounds wonderful and I totally agree, when scrappy comes from my own scrap stash and I'm in total control (did I really just own up to being a control freak on my blog?!).  I'm not so keen when it's an amalgamation of many people's stashes, for me this is in danger of becoming fabric vomit.  

So why did I take part in this Fabric Vomit Scrappy Fabric Charm Swap?  Well I wanted to support the organiser, an online quilty friend, and I thought I could just divide the charms across my colour separated scrap bins and use them up for projects such as this.  To be fair the majority of fabrics in the swap were really lovely - just not together!!! - separated amongst my stash they'll all be very useful over time, however there were one or two that really set my aesthetic nerves jangling

If you don't like a fabric in your stash the second question has to be why is it still there?  

Why not swap it - you'll be amazed how one of your quilty friends may love it as apparently we don't all have the same taste in fabric it seems!, donate it to a quilt guild or charity store, or use it - maybe make a charity quilt?

I struggled with my conscience, is it okay to make a block using fabric I've chosen but don't actually like?  I wondered how I'd feel posting about a fugly block I've created from choice - that one was simple, I just wouldn't, post about it that is.  Still to finally be rid of four 5" charm squares that I didn't like and wouldn't have to look at again in my stash!!!  That decided I set about making the block.

I pulled the four 5" charms squares and made four Flying Geese Units.  I sewed the scrap ends together along with a small piece of black solid and included them too, then added a black solid to make it up to the required 12.5" block size.

Finally I stood back and looked at the block. [hmmm, it's actually not bad] did that thought actually just go through my head? [kind of got a Japanese feel going on] oh no, stop talking head voices.  I know let's show it to hubby and see what reaction he gives [he's going to love it, oh look at his face he does love it, oh what have I done? now he'll want a whole quilt made like this].

There you go I eat my words and have decided to share the block after all and be totally honest about it.

 Still can't decide if I love it and hate it though, it's quite a Marmite Block moment.  I do indeed HATE Marmite, fortunately so does my husband so we've never encountered this (un)romantic problem:

I think the block could look great in a quilt made up of all these fabrics/colours but continuing the theme of being honest let's face it these Block Lotto blocks are going to be a pile of Scrappy Blocks - can red Flying Geese pull all that together in a whole quilt?  The winner's got their work cut out - I really hope it's not me!

Have you made something for someone else with a fabric you don't like just to get rid of it? 

Share your Charm Swap experiences too.

As always you can check out all the blocks that our Guild make for the Flying Geese Block Lotto on my Quilty - NYC Metro Mod Guild Challenge Blocks- I'll add more pins as each person in the Bee posts photos of their finished blocks and you can see my NYC Mod Quilt Guild post here too.

And you can click this link to see all of my NYC Mod Quilt Guild Bee Blocks and Challenge Blocks/Quilts.

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Tutorial: Charm Squares - An Easy Way To Cut Multiples Quickly

So I need to cut a large number of charm squares for a quilt top I'm making for a course at The City Quilter, Manhattan next Thursday.

Could be quite a task but I do have a fantastic piece of kit that I'm going to share with you - June Tailor's Shape Cut Plus Ruler.  I was introduced to this gadget by Karen Haynes, a tutor at CQ.  Using the Shape Cut Plus should make very light work of cutting up the fabric. The ruler is 12" x 18" with vertical slots for cutting guidelines every 1/2". 

And here's how I did it - the fabric colours aren't the best to show up against the colour of the cutting mat so I hope you can all see it properly.

I need 72 accent squares - 24 from each of the 3 coloured fabrics and then I need a further 72 squares from my main fabric.  Each of the three accent fabrics is 42" wide so I can get 8x 5" squares from each width (40") and I'll need 3x 5" cut widths to create 24 squares.

Iron the fabric and fold it in half lining up the selvedge dots so the selvedges from both edges can be removed in one cut.

Fold the fabric in half up to selvedge edge again

Lay the fabric on the cutting mat and place the Shape Cut Plus over it lining up the blue '0' horizontal line parallel with the folded edge of the fabric - at the same time line up the vertical '0' with the raw fabric edge, making sure that when you cut this edge any unevenness will be cut away to leave a straight edge line on the fabric.

As I want 3x 5" strips I have marked the Shape Cut Plus with pink tape at the 0/5/10/15" slot lines so I can use these as my guide and know I'm cutting through the fabric at the right place - this takes all the anxiety out of cutting!

If you are right-handed place your left hand on the Shape Cut Plus to hold it in place on the fabric - though I have to say it stays in place really well anyway (if you're left-handed work from the opposite side).  Place your rotary cutter into the slot guidelines of the Shape Cut Plus, start closest to your body and slice away from you through the fabric at the 0/5/10/15" markers.

I've moved the fabrics apart a little so you can see how I've done the cuts - takes seconds, amazing!

Now you can remove the edge cuttings and the remainder of fabric that you won't be using.

There're two ways to do the next cuts and which you chose depends on if you want to save another few seconds of cutting time and have 2 scrap pieces left over or would you prefer to have 1 larger scrap piece left from your cutting.  Anyway, here's the two methods and you can decide what works best for you.

left column - quicker method/centre & right column - larger scrap method

Larger scrap piece - At 5" widths you can only cut the next stage 2 strips at a time. Unfold each strip of fabric so it is now folded in half instead of quarters.

Turn the Shape Cut Plus around 90 degrees and place it back on the fabric being sure to again line up the '0' cutting line with your selvedge edge length line and the '0' blue horizontal line with the edge of the fabric width.

Cut the 0/5/10/15" line through the 2 strips of fabric and then move the final section of each strip along and cut another 5" square from that.

Repeat with the 3rd fabric strip. 

Slightly quicker method with smaller scrap piece - You can leave the fabric folded into quarters and cut the 90-degree cuts from there at 0/5/10" in the same way as above but this way you get 2 smaller strips of leftover fabric.

Iron flat any squares that have a fold line in them.

All in all, it took me less than an hour and that includes all the ironing, photo and note taking -not bad eh?  I can't believe it - I'm all done, everything for my quilt top is cut out and ready for class, it took no time at all and wasn't the chore I imagined it would be thanks to using the Shape Cut Plus - oh and, of course, I should say a big thank you to Tatty who, as you can see below, has been busy helping me :)

If you can't get the hang of my instructions June Tailor has done her own excellent demo which you can view here: Shape Cut Plus Demonstration Video.

Click this link to see all of my Tutorials, Hints & Tips

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.