DAY 90 and A BLANKET FOR TYLER

My living room is full of Blankets of Hope I have on display. Madison asked one day recently who they were far and asked me to make her one. Last Thursday when I had them for the day, I took her and Tyler to a fabric store and let them choose some material for a blanket for each of them. 

Saturday I started working on the blocks for Tyler's blanket. He told me he wanted certain colors together so that is what I did. To do that I decided to cut the print into 6-1/2 inch cut squares and then use the solid color as a "sashing" surrounding the print but I didn't want to do cornerstones. As I was making the blocks I thought it might be a good tuturial for those of you who have not done it before. 

The process is actually fairly simple. (You might be saying, "That's easy for you to say".) Well that is the purpose of this tutorial to show you that it is an easy block to make. One thing that is especially nice about the block is when you are sewing the blocks together there are no seams to match/nest together until you have to sew the rows together.

Each block is about 10-1/2 inches square when finished and is made up of one 6-1/2 inch square from your focus print and then four strips cut 2-1/2 inches wide and 8-3/4 inches long.

Tyler's quilt will be 4 blocks x 5 blocks or 20 blocks total. I cut a total of 20 squares 6-1/2 each. Since Tyler chose two different car prints, I cut 10 from each print and 40 strips cut 2-1/2 inches x 8-3/4 inches from each of the two solid colors. 

I had my iron on as I was pressing the seams as I sewed them.

It doesn't make any difference which side you start with, but I chose the right side of the square. I placed one of the strips along the side edge of the square with the excess at the top. I also checked to make sure there was 4 inches of the square showing.

I started sewing the seam a few inches from the bottom

and then pressed the partial seam toward the strip. 

Next I sewed the second strip on by matching it along the edge of the bottom of the square. This time it should measure 3-3/4 inches showing.

This time the entire strip is sewed and pressed toward the strip.

















Now the third strip is placed along the left side and sashing. This time I had to measure two different places...first at the top from the first seam to inside strip edge and then along the open bottom of the square.

It should be 3-3/4 inches at the top and

then 4 inches at the bottom.

I trimmed excess strip as necessary

before ironing the seams toward the strip. I cut the strips a little longer than I needed to account for seams and pressing.

Now I sewed the fourth strip on the top of the square by matching edges but checking to make sure 3-3/4 inches was open.

After I sewed the strip on, I cut off the excess and

then pressed the seam once again toward the strip.

Now I was ready to finish sewing on the first strip (all the way from the top to just past where I had sewed originally).

This should have 3-3/4 inches showing.

After this seam is pressed toward the strip, the block will look like this from the backside

and this from the front.

Here are the twenty blocks ready to sew together to make the top for Tyler's blanket. 

























Can you tell how much Tyler likes to play with cars from the prints he chose?

I will show you the finished blanket in a future post. I still haven't found a fabric for the backing yet so it will probably be next week. Hope you will come back to see the finished blanket.

Day 102 and Baked Apple Fritters...

CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC NUMBERS, 5/10/2020

UNITED STATES

CONFIRMED CASES   2,046,075
RECOVERED CASES     788,885
DEATHS                           114,167

GLOBAL

CONFIRMED CASES   7,354,209
RECOVERED CASES  3,628,913
DEATHS                           414,376