Winter Mystery Quilt along clue 3 is here!

Good Morning to everyone!  here is your clue 3 for the Winter Mystery Quilt Along!

Are you all ready?

Today you will be sewing hourglass blocks and I have a very cool way of doing them without dealing with triangles!  I am sure you are happy about this neat little trick.  

Cutting Instructions

So today you will need 18 backgrounds cut at 7 1/4" this will either be you light or your dark fabric

Then you will need of your 18 Medium fabrics cut at 7 1/4".  I am using two colours for my mediums and if you are doing this cut 10 of one colour and 8 of the other.

Preparation and Sewing Instructions 

Squares ready to be prepared for sewing

Mark each medium fabric with a pencil diagonally like this

You may use a pencil or you may use a hera marker like I did to form a crease in the fabric that you can see so you can use this as a guide.   Pair your mediums with a background fabric square with right sides facing.   Off to the machine we go and we will sew a 1/4" seam either side of this marked diagonal line.

You should now have 2 sewn lines like this

Place your ruler point to point diagonally on the opposite diagonal to you have sewn

Cut the fabric from point to point diagonally on the opposite of the sewn diagonal like in above diagram and below.  Then cut on the drawn or marked line inbetween your stitching.  

this is what you will now have.

Open up the pieces and you will now have four quarter square triangles ready to make into hourglass blocks.

cut units to make hour glass blocks

Press your seems to the dark side, in my case this was my medium fabrics.   Making sure you but the centre seems together to have a neat fitting block and then sew this seam to form your hourglass blocks.

Pink ones sewn Yellow to be sewn

Ta Da!  You are almost complete.  If you did not hear on the first clue I accidentally recalculated my calculations and halved the amount of four patches you need so you will need to make another 36 four patches before next weeks clue.  

unit blocks and totals for the quilt so far

72 four patch units

9 Uneven 9 patches

36 hourglass blocks

I really hope you are enjoying this quilt,  next week sees the final clue and the making up of the quilt. I have actually purchased a striped binding for mine and a Star background which you can see in last nights blog post here

Also remember Announcement of Mystery can be found here

                          clue 1 can be found here

                          clue 2 can be found here

You can join us on Facebook Wehago Designs Quilting Community or on Instagram with #wintermystery2016.  

Looking forward to seeing your quilt come together like mine is and all the different combinations of fabrics and colours.  It truly is amazing how we can make a quilt look different by our different choices of fabrics and colours and make them look so totally rockstarish!

So this is your EARLY Friday post to start your weekend off in a great way!

We are heading into a very cold patch of weather today so if you are in my part of the world rug up and stay safe and to everyone else take care and stay safe and we will meet back here again very soon.

signing off to go and get ready to quilt some more an another project.1

Wendy 

Ready, Set, Sew! Winter Mystery quilt along!

The time has arrived to reveal the first clue!  Hope you are ready!  If you missed the first blog post with the requirements you can find it here.

Ready? Set? GO!

For this weeks clue you will need just your background and your dark fabrics which you have chosen.  So let's begin!

My colour selection - answered

I decided I wanted a bit of variety in my quilt and not just three colours.  So I have chosen green and blue as my darks so to speak.  These are both next to each other on the colour wheel so they will blend well.  I haven't worried that they are lights or darks just that they show blue and green or a mix.  

For my medium I decided to use pinks and yellows, these have two colours between them on the colour wheel and go together well plus they are two colours away from the green.  You could work the opposite way or chose and fabrics like this in a combination you like.

my fabrics from stash

Cutting Instructions

Ok you will need to cut 2" strips from your background fabrics,  I have actually used partial strips as I am busting my stash for this little quilt and I want variety to create movement in my quilt

You will require 288" in length overall

From your dark fabrics cut the same amount of 2" strips plus an extra 36, 2" squares and put these squares aside for next week.

colour wheel

Cutting Instructions

Ok you will need to cut 2" strips from your background fabrics,  I have actually used partial strips as I am busting my stash for this little quilt and I want variety to create movement in my quilt

You will require 288" in length overall

From your dark fabrics cut the same amount of 2" strips plus an extra 36, 2" squares and put these squares aside for next week.

strips ready for piecing

Strips cut and waiting to be paired and sewn.  I lay might out like this, I take a background strip and then I put another coloured strip on top and sew together.  If the fabrics are different sizes I just sew to one is complete and add another as the photos below show you.

let the piecing begin

sewing a 1/4"

Once these are all sewn, take to the pressing board and press with the seams towards the dark fabric. 

Then off to the cutting mat where we sub cut these strips into 2" just like the photo below.  We require a total of 72 (2" X 3.5" strips) of each colour 

Subcutting strips

subcut pairs

Strips all subcut ready for pairing and piecing into four patch blocks.  Don't worry if you have a few extras you may like to use your favourite combination and swap some around later.

ready to make four patches

Now off to the machine to sew these babies together!

final seams happening for this week!

Sew the four patches together using the 1/4" seam.  Remember to make sure you butt your seams to each other so your centre of the block, this will ensure they match nicely.   Just like below. 

unpressed block straight from the machine

After you have sewn your units please go and press them all. They should measure 3.5" now
And you should have a total of 72 four patches. 

Patches to be put away ready for next clue

Clue 1 complete! Yay!

Above you will see the extra squares with the four patches all complete.  Now I would love to see all of your creations.  So remember you can come over toWehago Designs Quilting Community Group on Facebook the or hashtag your photos on Instagram with #wintermystery2016 and follow me on Instagram @wehago.  I also have a Facebook page Wehago Designs and I plan on putting this pattern on my website once we complete the quilt and it will be a free downloadable pattern.

So off you head to the cutting board or the fabric stash and start your creation.

So looking forward to seeing this come together all over the world, and many thanks for coming with me on my quilting journey. 

Have Fun

Wendy

Good bye 2015! Hello 2016!

Good bye 2015! Hello 2016!

I would like to say I have had an amazing year with lots of finishes and with only a few not quite finished tops.  Most are not far from being finished.

But my most exciting this is my Bom quilt along!  I plan on taking you on a little journey to make a quilt with me.  I am using the fabrics above and may add the occasional solid as I go.  I plan on showing you one block with lots of variations and we will have a chance of embellishing with applique or embroidery or just leave them as they are.  

 

Thes are the fabrics I have chosen to work with for the first month!  I also plan to show you how to piece this either by hand or by machine whichever your preferred method is or if you would like to try another way.

I plan to release the blog post to give you all the details of the first block on a very special day in my life! It will be the 8th of January.  During this post I will let you all know why it is a special day to me and why I want to share this day with you all.  So you have a week to gather four fabrics as you do not need all of them yet and you can even use up your scrap heap, I love scrap heap challenges!

If you missed the first announcement of my Bom here It is

During the last week or so hubby has been on holidays and has been keeping my energy up by serving me coffees and special Brunsli biscuits.

So I would also like to invite you to come to join my group on Facebook Wehago designs quilting community  to share in lots of fun or follow me on  Instagram or even share on a Pinterest board I will create for the BOM 2016 once we start!  I look forward to seeing everyone's creations and having lots of fun with you all.

So until we all start, please have a safe and fun end to 2015 and all the very best for a wonderful 2016

Until then keep quilting and creating

Wendy.