Hello and welcome back! Our family had the nicest Christmas, I hope yours did too. Thanks so much for all your warm wishes, they made my holiday even sweeter. I love this time between Christmas and New Years, we just stay in and enjoy the decorations, leftovers, and lull that follows Christmas. It's a pleasant and relaxing way to wrap up the year.
Even though I took a blogging holiday I've still been sewing and am very excited to have something new to share with you today, so thanks for stopping by!
Have you seen Camille Roskelley's Craftsy Video called, "25 Half-Square Triangle Blocks with Camille Roskelley"? This post won't make any sense unless you have, so I've attempted to attach the video to this post. If you can't get it to work the video is also available on Camille's blog, Simplify,
here. I think this is a clever little video and Camille's fun personality and enthusiastic facial expressions makes me laugh every time I watch it.
If you're a regular reader of my blog you know half-square triangle units are my favorite block. I use the Easy Angle, make them big, then square them to size. Perfectly made hst units can make some amazing blocks. In Camille's video she uses a half square triangle in every square of a 16 piece block. She comes up with 25 different blocks, naturally, being a hst fan, I love them all.
I mentioned this video to a friend, Carrie, and shared that I was thinking of making every block in the video, and to make it even more fun, I was thinking of making different size blocks, setting some on point, adding sashing to others, and basically creating some sort of math and setting hst hot mess. My friend was intrigued by this idea and suggested a little holiday sew along. In the end we decided to select 16 blocks from Camilles' video and to use Camille's color palette from her pattern Puddle Jumping (
click here) for our projects.
We both started with the exact same number of hsts in the exact same fabrics. Here are my 14 different pieces of fabric with 20 hsts from each fabric for a total of 280 units. (yes, that's Starlight still languishing in a state of limbo on that second shelf) Making 16 blocks meant that we needed 256 hst units, starting with 280 gave us 24 extra units to play with.
The next thing I did was select the 16 blocks that I wanted to make out of the possible 25.
Next step, to start piecing. I didn't have any rules on which pieces of fabric I used, I just went with what was pleasing to my eye. My 16th block was a little of a challenge, based on the units I had to work with, but considering I didn't have a master plan, I think they all turned out just fine.
And here are my 16 blocks.
The blocks finish at 15 inches and the fabric is mostly April Showers by Bonnie and Camille for Moda.
Carrie and I are going to use the same setting for our blocks and I'm hoping to add this quilt to my list of 2013 finishes, stop back by to see if I make it. Carrie/La Vie En Rosie has finished her "Shower Shuffle", the name we're giving our projects, and is blogging about her finish today. (
click here) I can hardly wait to see her blocks and compare them to mine.
This would be a great scrap project for that bag of orphan hsts you've been saving and the size is up to you. The block, setting and size potential is unlimited. I think this project would make for a nice guild challenge quilt or bee swap too. Keep it in mind as you work on your 2014 To Do list.
