Wish Upon a Quilt Blog

Do you like puzzles? This is month’s Building Blocks is for you! If you like a mystery and want to figure this out on your own, stop reading now! If you would like a little help….keep reading

If you like our design (the purple fabric is our background) you will need the following to successfully complete this month’s block:

4 Units like this

2 Units like this:

2 Units like this:

1 Unit like this:

Next, sew the units together to complete “columns” like this:

Then, sew the columns together to complete the block. The unfinished block size is 9 1/2″. Voila! You have a gorgeous block. Here is another variation in the black and white colorway.

How are your building blocks coming? Post some pictures of yours on our facebook page so we can all see! There is a template set available to make the piecing easier. Let Nancy and I know if you would like another cutting demo next month. Thanks so much for participating!

How are you coming along with your Building Blocks? Do you feel a little out of your comfort zone by designing the block coloration yourself? If you do, congratulations! It is good to try something new and a block of the month is the perfect way to fine tune and stretch your skills. You have enough fabric in each kit to make 2 blocks, so if you don’t like the first one…try a different color combination in the second one. This is how we colored ours – we are having so much fun with this program…hope you are too! Happy building and quilting!

Welcome to Building Blocks – the fabulous Block of the Month program designed by Sharyn Craig.  At Wish Upon A Quilt, we stepped outside of the box a bit to bring you this program that is intended to bring out the creative genius in you! While we select the fabrics and provide a pattern – you will design your own quilt by choosing your fabric placement.  The whole program is designed so that you will challenge yourself to make a block the way you want to make it - branching out, and seeing what happens.

Getting Ready to Build

Building Blocks kits come in 4 different colorways – Black & White, Christmas, Kaffe Fassett and Batik. You’ve chosen your colors, now what? Select  2 yards of a background fabric to use with your Building Blocks kits. I’ve pointed out the background fabrics we selected in the pictures below.

Make a copy or two of the block pattern in your kit (you can make copies for your personal use) so that you can play with the design of your block.  We use colored pencils to test block designs. Your kit includes enough fabric to use any of the colors and you have enough fabric to make two blocks…in case you don’t like the first one. If you love them both –great! You will be making 2 quilts!

Once you have a block design that you are happy with, you are ready to cut. The great thing about the Building Blocks pattern is that you can rotary cut or use templates.  If you would like a set of templates, we are taking orders for them.  Piece your block following the instructions and before you know it, you will have a very special, unique quilt that you designed! Looking forward to seeing your blocks!

Kaffe Fassett - purple aboriginal dot background

Christmas - cream background

Betty finished this Americana Modern block of the month quilt. Gorgeous! Nice job, Betty!

Love this quilt – we have one kit available here.

Here are June’s completed blocks. How are  your blocks coming along? Don’t forget to save ALL of your leftover fabric, you will be receiving instructions very soon on what to do with that fabric!

Starry Night Block of the Month - how are you coming with your blocks? Here are pictures of the finished blocks for April. If you are doing the Kaffe Fassett block, notice that your kit will have the polka-dot fabric as shown on the bottom of the block. Happy quilting and see you next month!

Warm Colorway

Kaffe Fassett Colorway

Cool Colorway

We have had some requests to post pictures of the Starry Night block of the month blocks…so here you go! We’ll try to get them up earlier next month. Happy Stitching!

The Y Not? 2010 Block of the Month was a challenging program that yields a beautiful quilt.  Setting the blocks is not nearly as challenging as Y-seams. You create a wonderful 3D effect by choosing a light and dark fabric. You also get to have the fun of diagonally setting a quilt. Diagonally setting a quilt is easy with the aid of the Creative Grids Side setting triangle. It enables you to easily cut the large triangles we need from strips. We use it to cut the side setting triangles and the triangles used to create the large 12 1/2 inch half square triangle blocks that give the quilt that wonderful 3D effect.

The following  video steps you through the use of the Creative Grid Side Setting triangle for this quilt.

Note that you will need six 9 inch strips of each color to yield enough triangles.

I hope that you enjoyed seeing your sewing skills challenged and encouraged to grow in the year 2010 and that you’ll enjoy the results of your labor in 2011.

Thank you for participating in our “Y – Not” block of the month program. You asked for a challenge and I think we delivered…not to worry, no more Y seams to set the quilt! Wendy and I have our quilts on display at the store and the setting instructions are ready for pick up! If you have Santa Bucks, what a great time to use them…on the setting fabric for your quilt! If you participated online, setting kits for the Kaffe and Batik quilts are available.  See them both here.

Wendy will be on hand in early January with a setting class, stay tuned for details!

If you missed our “Y Not” program, we have several different Block of the Month programs this year, sign up for one  or more here…looking forward to helping you create beautiful quilts in 2011!