Sew Along With June- Block 1

For my sample I will be using various precuts of the line, Folktale by Lella Boutique for Moda, which is available at the store. But you can use which ever line strikes your fancy…or use your stash (oops, sorry, COLLECTION of fabric) The choice is yours. Go calm and sedate, wild and wonderful or somewhere in between. I will be able to get all of the blocks out of a charm pack and a jelly roll…plus background fabric and some left over. I am starting out with half a metre.

You will also need the usual quilting supplies: rulers, rotary cutter, cutting mat, thread, marking pencils and of course everyone’s best friend…the seam ripper. Not that we are going to make mistakes… but just in case. You will also need a working sewing machine. If you don’t have one we can help you out with that too. We just happen to be a Janome dealer

All seams will be a quarter inch unless otherwise stated. Some machines come with a pre-set ¼ inch. If it does, just check and make sure its an accurate ¼ inch. I have found moving my needle over to the far right (or 9.0 on my Janome 8900) gives me a better ¼ inch.

Here we go:

BLOCK ONE just happens to be a cute little cat.

To start you will need (5) 5-inch squares of fabric…better known in quilting circles as a charm. 

4 of these charms will be in 4 different designs of one colour group and the other will be a background colour. I have chosen white for background.

2 of the coloured ones and the white one will be trimmed to 4.5 inches.

From another charm cut (2) 2-inch squares for the ears.

From the last charm cut one rectangle 4.5 inches by 3 inches for the face

Also, out of the background fabric cut: one rectangle 4.5 x 2 inches, two rectangles 8.5 inches by 2.5 inches and two rectangles 12.5 by 2.5 inches.

Draw a diagonal line on the back of your coloured 2-inch square ear fabric.

Place the right side of ears to right side of background 4.5 x 2 rectangle. Sew along the diagonal line as shown in picture. I would suggest that you actually sew just one thread to the outside of the line. That’s to the part you will be cutting off. That will give you a much better result.  Trim seams to ¼ inch and press towards the ear.

Also another hint… use a small piece of fabric (safety net), start your sewing on this and sew right onto your work this will stop your machine from “eating “ your fabric and we don’t want to start feeding our machines because they can get very hungry sometimes and cause us all kinds of grief. This workespecially well on points

Sew the ear unit to the 4.5 by 3-inch face rectangle. Press toward face rectangle.

Sew face unit to the 4.5-inch background square. Press toward background.

Sew the remaining two 4.5-inch squares together making the body unit. Take the 2 ich background square and draw a diagonal line. Sew to the top right-hand corner of the body unit in the same manner as you sewed on the ears. Trim and press toward background.

Sew the body unit to the face unit matching centre seam. Press. At this point I like to do the swirly thing in the centre. It will lie flatter. To do this you have to unpick a couple of stitches in the seam allowance and press one side up and one side down. Once you get the hang of it, it  is easy.

Your block at this point should be exactly 8.5 by 8.5 inches.

Sew the 8.5 by 2.5-inch background pieces to each side and press to background.

Next sew the 12.5 by 2.5-inch background pieces to top and bottom. Press to background piece.

AND yes I did forget to put her rump piece on ..… but its all fixed now.

And there you have it. Your 12.5 by 12.5-inch beautiful little cat. Well done

See you in a couple of weeks. Happy Quilting.