ScrapHappy Saturday - Orange you Glad?

 

I am so sorry for saying last week that August was going to be dark. Dark is next month! I completely zoomed past orange. August is all about the orange. I worked ahead on the Hen & Chick blocks, so in my mind, I am already thinking ahead. I have scraps of ALL colors strewn around my sewing studio and it is delicious and chaotic.  Honestly though, I have just been hand sewing hexies and soaking in the Olympics. 

My weekend promises to be frantic as well. We have a couple of weeks ahead of children in transition. Sydney has a 3 week gap between her old college apartment and new, so we will head to Gainesville to bring her home for a few days and then she has to couch surf during her sorority recruitment event which happens before the move in day of her new apartment. Ryan is able to move in and out on the same day, so we just have to go up in a couple of weeks and schlep all of this things 3 blocks from one apartment to the next. Anna isn't moving, but she had to join into our happy confusion and is flying back from her nanny gig in Boston tonight. Because Kurt took her to the airport in DC, he now has to pick her up and take her back to her car before hopping on a plane to come home so we can drive over to start with the Sydney migration.  I love having kids, I just wish they would take turns.  After August I think they will be self sufficient again for a while. 

We are officially back in school again, so sewing time is going to be harder to come by and so much more appreciated as a result. I hope that you can find some orange scrap with which to play. Orange used to be a rare shade in my stash, but I have made some deliberate efforts to bulk up this happy color. If you want to sew dark instead, please feel free to save your oranges for one more month, It's all about doing what works for you. Orange and dark go great together, it would also be fun to mix and match!

Hen & Chicks August Block 4 - Facets

 

I enjoy modifying existing blocks and working with consistent subunits. It makes sewing easier and gives unlimited design possibilities. This is a modified Aunt Sukey's Choice Block. 

I enjoyed the Aunt Sukey's Choice block, but something about the line of the diagonal in the corners seemed jarring to me. I modified those to insert some slightly larger triangles to give a faceted diamond look. I don' think this block has a name, so I decided to call it Facets. 

The flying geese units are the same as Aunt Sukey. Just a dark and light goose put together to make a chevron. Start by drawing lines along the diagonal of each small square. 

Place a light square on the right corner of each orange rectangle and an orange square onto each background rectangle. 

Sew on the drawn line, then flip and press the triangle before trimming away the waste triangles behind. 

Repeat the same procedure on the left hand corner of each rectangle. 

Once your geese are done, arrange the dark goose on top and the light goose on bottom.  

Flip the light goose on top and sew along the long edge

Notice that the seam goes right through the point formed by the two seams of the goose.  

Press away from the light goose to minimize the bulk. Each unit should be a square, the same size as your center square. If anything is wonky, now is the time to trim or press so that each unit is the same size. 

The layout has goose chevrons along the edges, with HST units in each corner. 

Sew as any nine patch, pressing toward the center square to reduce bulk.  

Hen & Chicks August Block 3 - Swamp Angel

This is such a pretty quilt block. Why does it have such a strange name? I am sure there is a history somewhere, but I am enjoying the addition of QST units to the quilt, and so like to continue to work on a theme. 

This one has just 4 QST unts, 4 HST units and a center square. I used the QST fabric for mine, but it could be the other orange or even background, depending on the look that you like. 

I went ahead and made the HST units using my Easy Angle Ruler, but the cutting chart give you sizes for the squares you would need to cut. I  am showing the QST unit assembly, even though I feel like we've got it all down now.  Start with squares 1.25 inches larger than the finished size of your unit. Draw a line along the diagonal and place background and orange squares right sides together. 

Sew a quarter of an inch on either side of the drawn line and cut in half. Press open and trim dog ears

Sandwich two HST units together and repeat the process of drawing a line. 

Sew again on either side of the line, cut in half, press and trim dog ears. 

I like to rotate the seams on these. It reduces bulk and is also highly adorable. 

HST units form the corners, and the QST pieces go on the edges. It is really just an Ohio Star with HST units added to the corners. Everything is variations on a theme. 

Here is your finished block. I would like to make another one with background in the center and enjoy the floating rectangles formed around the edges. So many variations on similar themes!  I did swap the color placement in my two block sizes just for fun. 

 

Hen & Chicks August Block 2 - Aunt Sukey's Choice

 

I was on a roll with the flying geese, and so wanted to try out this one that uses both geese with orange bodies, and inverted geese with orange wings. Together they make a nice diamond shape that I could see as the foundation for lots of variations with different corners or centers. 

Lots of little pieces this time! Just go slow and be methodical, nothing is hard, just taking small pieces and combining them slowly to get bigger pieces.  

 Start by drawing lines along the diagonals of all of the small squares. I know it is tempting to try to sew straight across without the pencil line to guide you, but with these little guys, that is tricky. 

Use orange squares on 4 background rectangles and background squares on 4 orange rectangles. Save the other 4 background rectangles for later. Sew on the drawn line. 

You can go ahead and sew your strip set at the same time. I used a different orange fabric, but you could certainly use the same orange depending on what is in your scrap bin. 

Press the flip and press the corners before trimming the extra triangles from behind. Press the strip set with the seam going toward the orange. Now repeat the corner squares on the left side. 

When you return from pressing, sub cut the strip set into sections the same width as your original strips. 

Now we are getting there! You should have 4 orange bodied geese and 4 orange winged geese. Combine each of these with the orange bod on top and the orange wings on bottom. 

Combine the twosies from your strip set with the remaining 4 background rectangles. 

Now you are ready to sew. Make sure you are sewing with the orange winged geese on top so that you can get the seam to go through the point cleaning. 

Likewise, sew with the pieced unit of the the twosies on top to make it easier to manage the seams and make sure they remain headed in the correct direction.

Now your subunits should look like this. You have 4 spikes and for framed orange squares. Each unit should be square if you have pieced carefully with a quarter inch seam allowance. 

Now we are ready to put it all together. Place the spiky goose points in the center of each side with the peak pointing up and then fill in the corners with the squares going out. I think these would make adorable 4 patches when several of these blocks go together. The lack of secondary patterns is one of the sad parts of sampler quilts. 

There you go! I can imagine variations of this block with HST units in the corners or a nice dark fabric framing the corner squares. Lots of ideas to play around with here.  Enjoy!

Hen & Chicks August Block 1 - Aunt Dinah's Choice

 

I really have to wonder who Aunt Dinah was. Is her story written down somewhere? I found several variations of this block. Many of them had an extra square in each outer corner, I might try it that way sometime as it would give a nice secondary pattern when all the blocks came together in a bigger quilt. I also found versions where my flying geese unit was a quarter square triangle. That would make a nice pattern too, but somehow it wasn't what made it into my sketchbook  Again, something to think about for next time! There are always more quilt blocks to make in the future. Now that I look back through all the variations, maybe this isn't Aunt Dinah after all. It is what I made in any case, and I like it a lot, whatever the name.  

Use the HST method of your choice. I will use the flip and sew method for the flying geese. It isn't the method I usually use, but in smaller sizes, the waste of the flip and sew bothers me a lot less. I was pretty nervous about tiny geese, but they turned out pretty well and weren't as hard as I thought. 

Draw lines from corner to corner along the diagonal of the orange squares. Place one each (right sides together) onto the right end of the background rectangles pointing up toward the center. Sew ON the drawn line. 

Fold the corner open and press, check to make sure the edges all line up and feel free to trim any extra bits making it wonky before cutting away the extra fabric beneath the block. 

Repeat the same procedure for the left side to make four adorable little flying geese. They should be the same size as the rectangles you started with.  

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Trim away the extra bits from behind again. Feel free to make bonus bocks from these little bits if you like, I don't usually do that unless they are a bit bigger. 

Now pair those flying geese with the light orange rectangles so that the oranges meet and the background fabric is unattached.  

When you sew these two rectangles together, make sure the pieced goose is on top so that you can see where the seam is in relation to the point. This helps a lot with getting sharp points. The new seam should go right through the X of the two seams as they cross.  The pieced subunit should be a square the same size as your HST units and center square. 

The layout begins with the HST in each corner with the orange pointed in to a center background square. Very "shoofly" so far. 

Now just add in your freshly pieced side units to that the light orange touches the center square. This lets the dark orange make a nice frame around the edges.  

Now sew your nine patch and press the seams toward the unpieced center block. I think the dark orange had a nicely three dimensional feel like some sort of little origami star. I'm still not sure if this is an actual Aunt Dinah block, but I will definitely make it again.