Beginner Quilting Series: Final Two Blocks

I can hardly believe it but I'm halfway through my eight-week quilting class. Last night we started on the final two blocks! They are somewhat intricate which excites me because I love seeing all the pieces together.

The first is the Maple Leaf block.

Sample Quilt's Maple Leaf

As you can see it consists of a series of half-quare triangles and one funky one in the bottom, right corner. This is called a stem. We sewed our stems into the seam, but you can also hand applique the stem into the solid square.

Speaking of hand applique, here's how mine ended up turning out.

As badly as I spoke about hand applique last week, I really did learn to appreciate it. Note that I did not say love it. It was a great thing to keep my hands busy while watching TV, but I don't know if I'd be able to commit to it, or enjoy it any other time. I am mostly pleased with how mine turned out especially considering this was my first go at it.

But, back to last night. The next block we worked on is called the Spinning Star. This one might be my favorite.

Sampler Quilt's Spinning Star block

This one uses a combo of half-square triangles (green) and something called quarter-square triangles (purple). The block that make up the star's outer points are actually pretty tricky and without the guidance of my instructor I can easily see how I'd get them mixed up. The key is making sure your star "spins" the same way all the way around. If you swap a purple for a yellow, you're in big trouble. Well, maybe not...but you will be seam ripping and no one likes that.

You can see that my star point blocks are a little wonky.

See how the bottom curves up ever so slightly? That's on my nerves, but the teacher swears that it will blend when I attach the rest of the blocks to it. We'll see about that.

Stay tuned for next weeks blog when I show off my six completed blocks and discuss hand quilting vs machine quilting.

Need to catch up on the whole series? Check out previous posts by clicking on the titles below.

Week One: Beginner Quilting
Week Two: Stripping and Half-square Triangles
Week Three: Hand Applique