Anoka Quilter

Wow Sheri, you have been keeping yourself busy.

Baby Ryah looks so peaceful in her quilt. Congratulations on the new Grandchild.

Wholeheart Mom

That is one beautiful baby girl, Sheri! You should be so very proud of her.

sewbizgirl

Arkansas Crossroads Step 2: Making The “X” Blocks

Last week we assembled our 16 patch blocks. These should have come out at 8.5” square. If you need to trim your 16 patches to 8.5” and have not yet done so, go ahead and do this first, and set them aside.
This week we will begin cutting our background fabric to make our alternate “X” blocks. We will be cutting and using roughly half of our background fabric in this step, and saving the rest of it for step 3.
From your chosen background fabric, cut 32 (baby quilt) or 60 (throw size quilt) 4.5” squares from your background fabric. Four of these squares will make up your X blocks. You will be “snowballing” the corners of these blocks to make the points to complete your colored motifs. In this step we are only making the X blocks that fill in the center portion of the quilt.
If you are doing a random scrappy, you do not have to pay much attention to color placement at all. Just continue to go scrappy. HOWEVER, if you are doing the color-by-color layout, you will have to be careful to use the proper colors in the proper corners of your blocks.
Start by laying out your 16 patches on a design wall, bed, table or floor. Leave room for the X blocks in between them. Remember, the baby quilt is a 4 x 4 block layout, and the throw is a 5 x 6 block layout. Lay your blocks out in that configuration. THEN, layout 4 of the 4.5” blocks you cut from background fabric in between each 16 patch block, as in the photo below:

sewbizgirl

I deliberately left one square out wonky in that photo, so you could see that there are 4 squares that make up the block.
Now you will take those extra candy squares that you saved from step 1, and place them around your 16 patches, two on each side, matching your colors. Just lay them where they will be sewn, like so:

sewbizgirl

You will end up with two ‘remote’ corners with no color… see my lower right hand corner in the above photo? My upper left corner is the other ‘remote’ corner. Just place any two candy squares in those corners. You will add three more in the border later, to create a small diamond in those two corners.
Now you will begin “snowballing” your candy pieces to the exact corners of the 4.5” squares they are laid on. Begin by picking up only one or two 4.5” squares and sewing the candy squares on, then pressing and replacing them in the layout. By only moving a couple at a time you won’t get your layout mixed up. So, take that first square up, and TURN THE CANDY SQUARE FACE DOWN so that you will be sewing right sides together. You can use whatever method you like to sew that diagonal seam—drawing a line from corner to corner on the candy, or pressing diagonally to get a line, or my preferred method: just point and shoot! I line up my corners and do my best to sew a straight line between them. My seams in this photo are in gray thread.

sewbizgirl

NEXT: My secret to success with snowball corners is to leave the original corner intact and not cut away anything! I take the block to the iron and use the original corner to match my candy corner to. Then I press. Even if I sewed a wonky, curved seam, you will never tell once I press with my corners lined up. Then I still keep that corner, as it adds stability when piecing those blocks together. If the extra bit of thickness worries you, you can trim away the middle layer—the part of the candy that is covered. Trim that layer only to ¼” seam allowance, but keep the original corner of the background fabric.

sewbizgirl

Once you have snowballed all the corners and placed everything back in it’s place in the layout, you will notice your outside blocks are incomplete. Next week we will be making a border around the quilt center which will complete every block and make your motifs look as though they are ‘floating’. So set aside those remaing two candies in each color for those outside blocks. We will use them in Step 3, The Border.

sewbizgirl

Now all you have left to do to complete Step 2 is to sew each X block together. Again, just take up one block at a time, sew it and press it, and replace it where it goes in your layout. Sew the top two squares of the X block first, then the bottom two. Press the seams in opposite directions so they will ‘nest’ and sew the horizontal seam that joins top and bottom. You can ‘spin’ the seam allowance in the center intersection, or you may choose instead to press all those seams open. Then press your completed X block and admire your work. That’s it for step 2! See you next Friday for Step 3.

Here is one completed X block for my quilt:

sewbizgirl

If anyone missed Step 1 and wants to find it, it is from post #279-281.
Step 2 is from post #373-378.

Sew and show your progress!

Fraew

Thank you sewbizgirl. Time to get busy.