Temperature Quilt - a question answered

As in a big part of the country, it's been REALLY cold the last week or so. Yesterday was the coldest day in Des Moines, IA and will probably be the coldest day of the year.

low -18F high -3F

 

Here are a couple of blocks to give you a picture of how c-c-c-o-l-d it's been.

 

This morning I was reminded of something that has bothered me in the past.

I know for a fact that the coldest temperature for "yesterday" happened after midnight on the 16th (today).

So just to complicate things a little more,  I did some research this morning and found this on a local station's page:

 "On this weather page... daily high and low temperatures appear in chronological order. ...the high that appears here is our forecast for the maximum temperature expected that... afternoon; the low is for the lowest reading during in the evening or the next morning.

Similarly for all other days. National Weather Service forecasts follow an identical format.

However, for climatological purposes, daily highs and lows are defined (by international convention) as the maximum and minimum temperatures that occur during the midnight-to-midnight period, local standard time, regardless of the time of day those extremes might occur." 

This means that now we have to decide whether to use National Weather Service data or climatological data.

I think the best thing is to be consistent.

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Block 1

Today is the day! We're making the first block of our My Favorite Color is Moda (MFCIM) quilt!

It is huge - 36" x 36"!

Moda's first blog post is up too. I wasn't sure what blog posts would look like, and didn't want to post a bunch of tips that Moda may have already published. It seems to be more of a photo post though, so thankfully I did write down a couple of tings as I was making the block.

Before I start however, a prep tip. I made myself a little cheat sheet.  If you're making any other colorway than "Primrose Garden", it will be a little challenging to figure out the colors. I just glued little fabric swatches to a piece of card stock.

Tips:

1. Don't be overwhelmed by the block. See it as 9 separate smaller blocks. If you do this, you'll see that there are only 3 "different" blocks, two of which are repeated four times.

2. On the HSTs, I pressed half of each color combo to one side and the other half to the other side on all but the corner blocks' HSTs.  This way you can "nest" your seams when you sew the block, making it much easier to line them up.

3. When assembling the block, I pressed the seams in opposite directions for the same reason.

4. It is very important to double check which fabric is "up" and which fabric is "down" on each half square triangle.  There are images in Moda's blog post that will REALLY help with this (or save the image below).

If you're making a scrappy quilt or using your own colorway, I recommend using the coloring sheet to color or mark the fabrics. (There is a copy in the Facebook Group under "Files" or you can download it from this Moda blog post.)

5. Last but not least, be careful when pressing your block.  Solid fabrics have a tendency to develop a shine if you press "bumpy" intersections too much.  I have a piece of fabric I put over the top of the block when pressing the bumps.

I hope these tips help a little.

NOTE: As of the writing of this post, I still have a couple of kits left in each colorway.  I also have patterns for sale individually if you'd like to make your own version.

I'm REALLY considering a scrappy version but should NOT be making two quilts!

(I'd love it if you join the Facebook Group and/or post pictures on Instagram and mention the blog (and tag @twiddletails) if you find this post helpful.)