Progress Happening EVERYWHERE!!!

Happy Middle of July to you all… some of you are experiencing winter and some extreme summer! 

Whatever your weather… hoping you are finding some time to stitch… 

 I started the quilting on this 2 months ago… I am on the downhill slide now and enjoying daily progress on Hanover Stars 🙂

Here you can see my Hinterberg 3 pole frame my honey made me and a bit of my set up.  I love the view of our pond and the daily wildlife that roams our back yard too ❤

Since this frame is where you will be finding me today… loving the view of the quilting and the back yard… I am linking my slow stitching to my favorite Linky Party over at Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday blog HERE!

I was sooo thrilled that while taking a break I found this inspiring quilt on Pinterest…

But details on how to make it or what it was called at this point were sketchy at best!

After a bit of digging I found it was called a “Disappearing 9 Patch Star” block.  But fine points on making this quilt were still kind of sketchy… so I started building some blocks on Gloria my 301…

 Mine turned out scrappy too… I love scrappiness in blocks like this though 🙂

 And here it is with 2/3 of the blocks pieced… my current progress on this project….

And yesterday I wrote a nice proper tutorial on the project and how best to make these blocks HERE on my blog.  Go take a gander if this fun block interests you!  And here is a pic I just took of my sewing set up.. look closely on my sewing machine table and you will see 2 stacks of 5 blocks waiting for me to feel like machining them done 🙂

Also happening around here this week….
My honey gave both my much used vintage machines a spa treatment…

They both purr now after being massaged by the master fixer!  I can fix them both but they LOVE when he does it best!!! lol

And so sad to say…. my computer decided to quit on me!  So a new laptop was bought at an affordable amount at least for a replacement….

She isn’t as fast as my other computer and we have hopes of fixing her with a new hard drive in the future… but for now… Red is what I am seeing and this HP is filling my need the Dell didn’t.

The most unfortunate part is that I lost all my hard drive saved photos… I thought they were also saved in the cloud somewhere but I have yet to find them… luckily my photos from 2013 to present ARE in the cloud… but anything I had saved to the hard drive is gone now… any computer geeks out there that could save my photos if I sent them the hard drive??? Finding reliable and affordable computer geeks is another story… this seems to be a racket completely… we know how to take the computer apart to get to the hard drive …. and internal hard drives are affordable for sure… but WOW the fixers with companies are hijackers of your wallet all together it seems!

So I will end with my favorite wine (white zinfandel) and some dark chocolate sayings to amuse you instead of my thoughts on Dell out of country companies I weeded through trying to fix my fave computer before buying a holdover…

 Take these happy sayings to heart and have a blessed week… I hope to have the  center together on Daisy’s quilt to be… and be in the 70’s on % complete on my quilting when I blog next Sunday!  Until then… take time to ….

P. S.  Also pondering starting to make some of my own daily use clothing articles… do any of you sew for yourself???  Would love to hear from you if you do!!!  I am in love with Crafty Gemini Vanessa’s vids and have also been watching vids on Craftsy Unlimited… which is about to expand next week and change their name to Bluprint!  I am excited to have this membership via my friend Karen who blogs HERE!  Join if you like before they expand… LOTS of great content on the Unlimited platform and more fun stuff coming like exercise and yoga… sooo much more!  Here is what the email states “Bluprint lets you dig into anything you’ve ever daydreamed about doing, like dance, fitness, yoga, art, and home decorating (plus all the categories you know and love). You’ll also find community features to help you stay engaged, new exclusive series, and much, much, more.”

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Disappearing 9 Patch Star Tutorial

I fell in love with a quilt block this week… the directions were sketchy so I thought I would do a picture tutorial showing ironing and sewing helps 🙂

This is a Disappearing 9 Patch Star … and Yes!  It starts with a 9 patch… I am making mine very scrappy 😍

The instructions I found online after seeing this photo…

on THIS blog post from 2014 tells a better history of this block and shows some great scrappy photos…. but no real instructions on how… now I am a fairly good quilter so I figured I could play around and figure out my own way to do it… then I found THIS  blog post from 2013 showing this much less scrappy star block….

And it shows instructions using 5″ squares for the 9 patch block start…. 

I wanted to use 4″ blocks to better use MY scraps 😀

So here is my tutorial for a Disappearing 9 Patch Star using 4″ squares for your 9 patch start…

First decide how many completed star squares you want… if you use 4″ squares for your 9 patch your blocks will finish just over 10″ after squaring if you use a scant 1/4″ seam for all your sewing of seams.  I am planning mine to be 5 squares across and 6 squares down so a total of 30 squares to make a nice lap sized quilt.  I do plan to add a border or 2 to mine as well.  

IF you like scrappy and that is your goal….

 your first 4 blocks will look similar to this in scrappiness….

I wanted mine MORE scrappy so I did the rest in lots of 5 with no repeats of the red and blues… I used lighter colors on most of my center squares too but ran low on those so added some patriotic ones in there a bit too.  I made 30 piles of squares when I started.. each pile had:

• 2 – blue 4″ squares
• 2 – red 4″ squares
• 1 – center 4″ square (I went light with mainly red cream and blue colors there)
• 4 – white/cream 4″ squares AND
• 8 – white/cream 2 5/8″ squares

So that was quite a bit of cutting!!!!

Once you have cut and sorted you are ready to make a bunch.  I made 6 at once after making the first 4 … now they all looked like this…

See how much MORE variety I got making more blocks at a time???

So here are my helpful hints on piecing this block….

Make your 9 patch block setting your red blocks opposite and your blue blocks opposite…

 (HINT:  Make sure you have NO REPEATS in your bundle of blocks you are making at once to mix and match… this is important to a scrappy finish)

Press with a hot iron BACK first to keep seams going as below… then turn over and press from the front to avoid any tucks or pleats …

 Cut into 4 pieces with 2 cuts….  (HINT:  DO NOT disturb your block until both cuts have been made for the most accurate finish… use a smaller mat and rotate or move yourself around if need be):

 Here is my sets of blocks lined up ready to sew on the 2 5/8″ blocks for the flip and sew corners….

 Here I am now sewing the flip and sew corners.  I ironed mine in half and followed the valley side of the pressed block.  You could instead mark a pencil/pen line across the square… (HINT:  Sew just to the right of your mark or valley by a thread to leave potential space for thread and fabric to fold over).

 Here are all of a block with flippy corners sewn on both sides properly… Make sure you are sewing your flippy corners on right to make a star! lol

 Now cut off the excess leaving a scant 1/4″ or so ….

 Press open careful not to distort these bias edges now 🙂

 Next is up to you … the first blog post I shared the lady sewed halves together for a LONG time before joining… I like that way best too I think for a scrappy finish.  Here are 2 scrappy halves…

 Once sewn together open the center most seam so that all your seams open in a different direction.

 Here is a close up of that center seam opened….

 By doing this … you make it easy to join your blocks without sashing…. and you have nice areas once joined for some fancy stitching when quilting it too!

And you have nice areas once joined for some fancy stitching when quilting it too!  For now imagine what you would want stitched in those open areas from looking at these stars on my design wall!

Please feel free to leave a comment if this tutorial has been helpful to you and if this block interests you like it does me!  I love trying something different and fun and patriotic too 😀

Have a blessed day and don’t forget to…