Welcome to Week 3 of the Everett Star SAL! We are sewing this week, woo hoo! Last week we organized, labeled and cut our fabrics to prepare ourselves for the making of our Everett Star Blocks.
If you are just joining us, welcome! Be sure to grab the Everett Star Quilt Pattern, sign up for the weekly newsletter reminders, and read the following blogposts:
Everett Star SAL Information Blogpost
Everett Star SAL - Week 1 Blogpost
Everett Star SAL - Week 2 Blogpost
This week, we will be making one of each kind of Everett Star Block - Diamond and Cross.
POST TO INSTAGRAM
Week 3: Post a photo of your first Everett Star Blocks to show your progress! Be sure to use the #everettstarsal hashtag and tag @thencamejune to be entered into this week's giveaway.
You must post by Thursday February 1st at 11:59pm PST to be entered into the Week 3 giveaway. Each week starts fresh on Fridays and the previous week's post won't count for the next week's prize.
The weekly prizes will be the same throughout the SAL. One person will win the opportunity to get a 10 piece FQ bundle from me and a TCJ Bandana! You will be contacted when you win and then you get to let me know the color palette you are interested in - all blues, neutrals, rainbow, etc. And I will take your idea and build you a bundle! You get to also tell me if you want all solids, all prints or a mix. I can't wait to specially curate a new bundle each week! And yes, this is open to international participants.
Here is a photo of the Week 1 Giveaway Winner's bundle. She said she has been really into pinks lately and doesn't have many in her stash. So here is what I created!
LET'S SEW!
First up, I want to chat about scant seam allowances. Different quilters or sewers have different opinions on using a 1/4" seam allowance or a scant 1/4" seam allowance. Scant 1/4" seam allowances mean you will be sewing just SLIGHTLY less than a true 1/4" seam. The idea is that the thread itself eats into a seam just enough that over time it can add up, especially in quilts that have a lot of seams. Every tiny bit can have a big impact in the overall quilt. The Everett Star Quilt Blocks have a lot of piecing and seams and we have found that using a scant 1/4" seam is beneficial to the success of each block.
Below shows you three different seam allowances.
The first one shows a seam that goes OVER the 1/4" seam allowance, meaning it's too big of a seam. You can see that the thread is on the 1/4" line but the blue fabric is sticking out past the ruler.
The second seam shows an EXACT 1/4" seam allowance. The white thread is sitting directly under the 1/4" tick line on the ruler and no blue fabric is hanging out past the edge of the ruler.
The third seam shows a SCANT 1/4" seam allowance. The white thread is just barely to the right of the 1/4" tick line on the ruler and no blue fabric is hanging out past the edge of the ruler. This is the seam we should be shooting for.
You may want to practice a little bit on a scrap of fabric to test out your seam allowances. It may not look that different but imagine being off by 1/16, 16 times. That adds up to an entire inch over the course of sewing.
A couple more tips:
- USE PINS. When making flying geese, pinning is really imperative to not having those top squares shift. Also, when sewing all our components together, the pins help make sure our seams match up perfectly where they need to.
- Press really well. No matter if you need to press to the side or open, pressing well is really helpful in reducing the bulk of the block. There are a lot of seams and the better everything is pressed, the smoother the sewing process will be.
THE EVERETT STAR DIAMOND BLOCK
We have our block piles labeled and stacked together. If you are making the FQ Frenzy or the FQ + Yardage Design Style you will have only 2 fabrics in your block piles. If you are making the Yardage + Gradient Star Design Style, you will have 6 fabrics in your block. I will be showing you how we sew one block together, we follow the pattern almost exactly but we try to streamline sewing to batch some of the processes.
First, here are all the cuts for one Diamond Block laid out.
Then, here are how all the cuts get paired in total for each sewing section.
We start by marking the squares needed for our HST cuts, our Large Flying Geese and our Small Flying Geese. We set aside the Center Star Cuts, and the Center and BG cuts needed later to finish the 4 corner stars.
We like to batch sew the HST, the Large Flying Geese and the Small Flying Geese. You can see the chain piecing we did below.
Then, we did our first round of cutting, pressing and then doing the second wave of sewing on the flying geese.
Now we have our HSTs, Large Flying Geese and the 4 Corner Star Flying Geese made. Trim them as needed to the sizes provided in the pattern.
Next up, we lay out our 4 Corner Stars and batch sew these. It is important to check for directionality in your prints if necessary. Also, it is important to make sure the HSTs in the corners are laid in the correct direction.
As a small note - in Steps 13 - 15, I accidentally say to press seams AWAY from the flying geese but the arrows in the diagrams show pressing them TOWARDS the flying geese. Woops! Just pick one way of doing it and then stay consistent, away or towards, works no matter what!
Next we laid out our Large Flying Geese to check for directionality in our blue print. We made sure the 2 flying geese paired together had the same directionality. Then, we sewed these together!
At this point, we have our Large Flying Geese done and our 4 Corner Stars. Lastly, we are making our Center Star. We follow the same directions in the pattern, and remember if you are making the Yardage + Gradient Star, the star points and the bars and center square will come from the additional fabric you choose.
Okay! All of our components are ready, so we laid them all out to make sure any directional prints are oriented properly, our Large Flying Geese are laid out correctly to make the "diamond" and our 4 Corner Stars are laid out in the correct corners for the HSTs. And then we sewed it all up!
THE EVERETT STAR CROSS BLOCK
We will redo the process above but just slightly different in layout to create the Cross Block. Here are the fabrics laid out that are needed for one Everett Star Cross Block.
And here are how the cuts get paired to be sewn.
Just like above, we will start by sewing our HSTs, Large Flying Geese and Small Flying Geese for the 4 Corner Stars. We chain piece, cut, trim, do the second round of sewing and then a final press and trim.
Next up, we again laid out our HST and Small Flying Geese alongside the center squares and the background squares to create the 4 Corner Stars.
Next we laid out the Large Flying Geese and made sure each pair were directionally correct. Our golden stems help us find the direction in that floral print.
Lastly, we made our Center Star and then laid out all of our components. Now for the Cross Block, the Large Flying Geese are oriented in the opposite direction from the Diamond Block. This change creates the Cross effect radiating out of the center star.
One last final check to make sure our HSTs are in the correct places in the 4 Corner Stars and then it's time to sew it all up!
YAY! We did it! We now have one Diamond Block and one Cross Block. I know these blocks can feel a bit overwhelming with all the cutting and piecing but once you make one, I hope the process starts to "click" and feel easier. The next few weeks we will be moving through our block piles and watching our Everett Star Quilt grow!
THE WEEK TWO WINNER
Congrats to Erin of @shelbelled, you are the Week 2 Winner! Please email us at hello@thencamejune.com and we will start curating a 10 piece custom FQ bundle just for you and a TCJ Bandana!
