My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Blocks 18, 19, & 20

 I know, I know. The sew along ended quite a while ago.

Life has been crazy. I won't go into details, but I'm trying to wrap this quilt up (no pun intended) by the end of the year.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

Tips/Instructions:

Blocks 18 & 19 are basically the same block, just with different fabrics and different sizes.

The only tip I have is seam direction. Press the seams on two sections toward the outside triangles and the other two toward the center sections. This will allow for nesting of the seams.

Sew everything together.

Block 20

1. Pressing the HSTs:

Fabric 2 & 7 - press toward fabric 7

Fabric 2 & 5 - press toward fabric 2

6 1/2" HSTs - press toward fabric 2

2. Pay attention to the 4 patches. They are not all identical.

3. Lay out everything as you go.  This will definitely save time and effort since this this is a pretty intricate block.

All the blocks are now done!!! Next up, assembly.

NOTE: I still have patterns for sale individually if you'd like to make your own version. I also have a couple of Grunge Trading post kits left. They are 40% OFF and shipping is FREE.

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.

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Blocks 16 & 17

Two identical blocks using different fabrics.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

Tips/Instructions:

1. Making quarter square triangle blocks:

First make 4 HSTs.

Draw a diagonal line on the back of two identical HSTs as in the photo below. Place pairs right sides together as shown below.

The most important thing is to ensure that all the seams come together where they cross in the center.

I like to pin on either side of the center to ensure there's no slippage. Yes, I need new pins...

Sew 1/4" away from the diagonal line on both sides just like you would when making an HST. Cut on the drawn line and press. Here's the back.

2. Lay out all the pieces before you start sewing and every time you've sewn a seam(s) and take a photo.

 This will save you a lot of headaches and seam ripping. An example:                                                                                                

3. Take your time. It will save you time.

NOTE:  All remaining kits are on 30% OFF in both the Etsy shop and main store. I also have patterns for sale individually if you'd like to make your own version.

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.

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Block 15

This block looks very scary but really isn't. It's all HSTs and, because it's 27" x 27", it fills up a lot of space.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

Tips/Instructions:

I don't have many tips for this block.

Be sure to double check your fabric combinations because there are 4 different HST combos.

I always lay everything out on the table as I go.

Nesting seams is hard when there are this many pieces in the block.

I did manage to do a little when making the smaller square units.

Make the 16 individual squares and sew them together in groups of 4.

Then sew these together in pairs and, finally, sew the pairs together to complete the block.

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

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.

 

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Blocks 12, 13, & 14

We are making 9 blocks this month but don't panic.  They are very simple blocks.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

Tips/Instructions:

Block 12: Press the Fabric 8/10 HSTs' seams toward Fabric 10 and the Fabric 9/10 HSTs' seams away from Fabric 10. This will allow all the seams to nest nicely when you assemble the block.

Block 13: Instead of cutting the squares into triangles, I used the traditional way of making hourglass blocks.

1. Use all the squares to make HSTs. You will have 4 HSTs.

2. Draw a diagonal line as below on the back of 2 of the HSTs.

3. Place 2 HSTs (one with a line and one without) right sides together as below and sew 1/4" away from the line on both sides. Check that the seams line up where they cross over.

4. Cut along the drawn line and press. Trim to 9.5".

Repeat for the other 2 HSTs. You will have 4 hourglass blocks but will only be using 3.

Block 14: Press all seams toward Fabric 7.

NOTE: As of the writing of this post, I still have a couple of kits left in the Primrose Garden, Trading Post and Pink Lemonade colorways.  I also have patterns for sale individually if you'd like to make your own version.

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.

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Blocks 10 & 11

A quick month.

This month's blocks are really easy and I don't have too many tips that I haven't mentioned before.

I'm planning a post on how to decide which direction to press seams, so stay tuned.

 

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

Tips/Instructions:

Remember to make TWO of block 11.

NOTE: As of the writing of this post, I still have a couple of kits left in the Primrose Garden, Trading Post and Pink Lemonade colorways.  I also have patterns for sale individually if you'd like to make your own version.

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.

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Blocks 7, 8, & 9

 And there goes another month! Is it just me or is time flying faster than usual?

This month's block is really simple. You'll make the same block in 3 different sizes.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

Tips/Instructions:

1. Pin the larger half square triangles before sewing. It really helps keep the layers together.

2. You can do a lot of chain piecing here, which will speed up the process significantly.

3. Press all seams away from the HSTs and the center square.

4. When sewing the rows together, press toward the center or the block.

and last, but not least,

5. Remember to make THREE of block 9.

NOTE: As of the writing of this post, I still have a couple of kits left in the Primrose Garden, Trading Post and Pink Lemonade colorways.  I also have patterns for sale individually if you'd like to make your own version.

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.

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Block 6

 Oh my goodness! I thought I was making a block but instead I made a small 16-block quilt. It'll take up a lot of space in the completed quilt though.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

Tips/Instructions:

If you're not making the quilt in the Primrose Garden colorway, you will have to have your wits about you. This is where my trusty little cheat sheet came in very handy again.

1. Something that confused me a little is that you have to trim the HSTs (half square triangles) made using 5 1/2" squares to 5" and the HSTs made from 3 1/4" squares to 2 3/4" before making the blocks.

2. The first thing I did was to organize the squares by color as mentioned in the pattern. Remember that each pair of squares will make 2 HSTs, so you will only need half as many squares as HSTs. At first I thought I didn't have enough (and panicked just a teenie bit) because I forgot this little detail.

3. Make the HSTs and trim them as in 1. I found that the squares were a little small and some of the HSTs were hard to trim.  I ended up sewing scant 1/4" seams to make the HSTs a little larger and easier to trim.

4. This is how I assembled each small block (the arrows show seam directions):

5. When you've made all your small blocks, put them on your design wall or lay them out on the floor in their correct positions.  Take a photo for reference. This REALLY helps. Yay for technology!

6. Sew the blocks together in rows. Press the seams in alternating directions.

7. Sew the rows together.  I pressed these seams in whichever direction seemed like it would lay the flattest.

8. In a block this complicated you will never get all your seams to nest, so try not to get too frustrated.

Moda's blog post talks about trimming HSTs. There are 96 in this block!

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

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.

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Blocks 4 & 5

 I'm thinking I may need to find another sew along to join because making one block a month is driving me crazy.

Block 4 & 5 are simple half square triangle blocks.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

What will make this block lay much flatter is paying attention to your pressing direction.

Tips/Instructions:

1. Pin. I'm not a big pinner but it really helps for larger HSTs.

2. What will make this block lay much flatter is paying attention to your pressing direction.

Press your HSTs as follows:

Block 4:

Fabric 3&5: All toward fabric 5

Fabric 2&5: 2 toward fabric 2 and 2 toward fabric 5

Fabric 7&5: 4 toward fabric 7 and 4 toward fabric 5

Block 5:       

Fabric 3&10: All toward fabric 3

Fabric 3&9: 2 toward fabric 3 and 2 toward fabric 9

Fabric 2&3: 4 toward fabric 2 and 4 toward fabric 3            

3. "Fanning" the seams whenever possible will help too. (I have a tutorial on YouTube over here: https://youtu.be/hsWG44hXLy8)

A little diagram for assembly. The arrows indicate the seam direction:                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                             

Here are the two blocks on the quilt top:

Moda's blog post is also up now. It talks about high and low contrast.

Look at the Tropical Getaway colorway actually made up. I love it!!

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'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.

My Favorite Color is Moda Sew Along - Blocks 2 & 3

Time to make Block 2 (and 3). This one is a little smaller but I do think Moda is having us make the bigger blocks first so we can get our feet wet, so to speak.

This is my block.  A confession: I took the photo from this angle because my block is just a teenie bit wonky.

And I didn't notice that this month we're making two blocks, so I suppose I'll be doing a bit of sewing later today. Maybe the 2nd one will be straighter.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I will change the pattern instructions a little bit because a different way works better for me. This does not mean that the pattern won't work exactly as written. If you follow the pattern, your blocks will still turn out fine.

Tips/Instructions:

1. Start by attaching the squares to the applicable strips.  Be sure to use the correct colors or they won't fit.

2. I pressed the seams away from the squares. That allows all the seams to nest better, resulting in a flatter block.

3. When assembling, press all seams toward the outside of the block, away from the center. The picture below shows the sequence for attaching the strips to the center square.

Moda's blog post, with very good tips for getting an accurate block size, is up too.

Remember when I said I was considering a scrappy version? Well, I printed the color sheet and experimented with colors that I have in my stash.

This was the first draft. I pulled some stash & scrap prints and laid them out and it looked AWFUL!

Back to square one.

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.

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.)