Aztec Dance BOM - Month 5

 

I really can't believe we are already on Block 5 in the Aztec Dance block of the month. Next month (November 15th). I will be releasing the final block and finishing instructions so you can finish your blocks. 

You can now purchase Block 5.  Remember, you have two options for buying the pattern. First, My website is set up for both Printed and Downloadable PDF versions. For my International customers, I have an Etsy website.

Month 5

This month's block consists of two different Flying Geese color combinations and Triangle Pizazz units for the corners. There is no Diamond in a Square unit in this block, but we will be making them in Bonus Block 2 (tutorial found below block 5), which is included in this month's block.

Let's get started by cutting out those pieces from the cutting chart in your pattern.

Flying Geese

Note: If you have purchased your pattern from a quilt shop before this 10/14/2020. I have found an error on step 11 on page 2 of this pattern. Please see the Aztec Dance BOM Page download the updated page. 

In this month's block, we are making two different color combinations of flying geese units. 

Start by using your Quilter's Magic Wand, mark two lines, each 1/4" away from the center diagonal on the two small squares. Remember to use a very fine tip mark pencil or pen when marking your lines; this will give you a couple more extra fabric threads for those trim downs.

Position the two small squares diagonally on the opposite corners of the larger square. Remember to nudge the small square in toward the center in a couple threads.

Stitch on the drawn lines, then cut apart between the stitching line on the center diagonal. Press the seams toward the small triangles.

Place the remaining marked small squares on the units, again remembering to nudge in a couple threads from the large triangle sections' raw edge. Then cut apart between the line of the stitching on the center diagonal.

Right Handed

Left Handed

Align the diagonal guidelines of the Wing Clipper® with the seams of the Flying Geese unit. You'll automatically be centering the tool over your pieced unit. Refer to your Block Instructions for Trim downsizes for your block size. Trim the sides and across the top. 

Right Handed

Left Handed

Rotate your flying geese unit 180° and reposition your Wing Clipper® 1 to align the previously trimmed raw edges with the proper size for your unit and the "X" at the top with the intersection of the seams. 

Repeat to make 16 of both color variations of Flying Geese.

Triangle Pizazz Units

Start by drawing a diagonal stitching line on a Gold Square. Position the small square on one end of the small rectangles with the right side facing each other. The diagonal line should run from the top left corner to the right (see above picture).  Stitch on the diagonal line, trim the excess 1/4" from the stitching line. Press toward the

Small triangle. 

Unit A

Unit B

As shown in your pattern instructions, Position rectangle units either make a Unit A or Unit B and stitch the pair together along the rectangles' long sides.

Fold the unit in half and snip the seam allowance the center between the two triangles all the way through the seam allowance.  Press the seams in opposite directions away from the triangle. 

Center the unit on a large Rectangle and using a ruler with a 45° angle mark (The Tucker Trimmer I works great for this).  Place the 45° line on the unit's edge and draw a 45° sewing line on its wrong sides.  Making sure the line runs from top to bottom and goes through the corner of the triangle where the stitching lines meet.  Draw a second line on the opposite side of the unit through the other triangle.

Stitch on the drawn lines.

Cut a 1/4" from the stitch lines on both sides. Press toward the blue larger triangle.

Position the sizing diagonal of the Tucker Trimmer over the unit so that it lines up with the unit size diagonal seam line of the Triangle Pizazz and assuring the common diagonal lines up with the triangle at the center. Trim the first two sides.

 

Rotate the unit 180° and line up the Tucker Trimmer repeatedly, aligning up the diagonals and cut sizes with the previously trimmed edges and trim.

Assembly

Now comes the easy part of stitching all your units into beautiful blocks, referring to your pattern instructions to complete your 4 blocks.

Bonus Block 2

For this Bonus Block, we will be making a large Diamond in a Square unit.  Now, if you are making the wall hanging, you can use either the 6" or the Large Square Squared tools.  But if you are making the Queen, you will need to use the Large Square Squared tool due to that you are making a 9" finished size.

Since we should be familiar with the Square Squared tools by now, I will not be going into detail on how to make this unit.  

Please remember to use the Center Square Section of your Square Squared tool (Part A- from the Large Squared Squared tool) to trim down the center block before sewing your unit.

Right Handed

Left Handed

For the Trim, start by position the Trim Down Section (Part B of the Large Square Squared) of the Square Squared tool over the unit. Be sure to refer to your pattern instructions for trim sizes. Focusing the "X" of the finished unit sizes over the sewn seams. Trim up the side and across the top.

Right Handed

Left Handed

Rotate your Diamond in a Square Unit and reposition the Square Squared tool and the two remaining sides. Again, trim up the side and across the top.

Make 4 of these Bonus Blocks

See you on November 15th for the release of Month 6 and tutorials. Remember, you join our Quilting Affection Designs Block of the Month Facebook Group to share your completed blocks.  

Journey to Nebula Quilt Along - Jawbreaker - Cutting Star 60 way

 

Week 5 in the Journey 2 Nebula has started with the making of the "Jawbreaker" pillow by Jaybird Quilts. When finished, this pillow will measure 20".  

This pattern is written by Hex N More Ruler by Jaybird Quilts, but I will be using the Studio 180 Design Star 60 tool to do all my cutting. I'm using fabrics from the Island Batik "Islander Batik" Collection that I have been using for the last 2 projects.

The pattern calls for eight 2 1/2" x WOF strips, so I pulled out eight coordinating strips that I could use as strip sets. 

Then I began making four strip sets.

Once my strip set was stitched, I press the seams open to reduce the bulk.

Right Handed

Left Handed

Now that I have my strip sets ready, it was time to start cutting the triangle pieces out using the Star 60 tool, starting by carefully placing the strip on your mat.  If you are looking for the direction on the 

Position the mark at the tip of the tool with the top of the strip set and 4 1/2" horizontal line on the tool on the bottom edge of the strip set. Right Handed quilters will move from left to right. Left Handed quilters will cut from right to left.  Trim up one of the sides and down the other to get your first triangle.

The cutting technique we will be using can be found in the Star 60 instructions under the Cutting the Side Triangles.  Link to the Star 60 PDF Instructions.

Right Handed

Left Handed

Rotate your Star 60™ tool 180°, so the tip of the tool is facing you. Aligning the tip line on the bottom edge and the 4 1/2" Horizontal line on the top edge of the strip set. Trim up the side. 

Continue this process of rotating and aligning with all the strip sets.

Now all my triangles are cut using my Studio 180 Design Star 60™ tool.  Now its time to play with the pieces and their arrangement.  Next week I will show you my finished product.

Tina

Journey to Nebula - Lucky Charm Finishing

 

Welcome back to my Journey 2 Nebula blog posts. I got a little behind on my blog for Week #3, finishing the "Lucky Charm" pillow.  If you would like to see how I cut my Half Hexagons pieces check out my blog post on Cutting the Star 60 way, HERE.

The first thing I did after I finished cutting out my pieces was to arrange them the way I wanted the pillow to look in the front. 

Once I had them all arranged, I still had 10 of the Half Hexagons leftover, which will be filled in on the sides.

I found the halfway mark on the Half Hexagon pieces and cut all 10 pieces vertically.

Then place them on the sides of the pieces.  I choose one color of the Half Hexagons to give them all a border effect.

I figured out a way to make the stitch of the row go faster and to stay organized.  I started by pulling two rows that I had placed on my small design board and placed them into stacks. 

I then started stitching the Half Hexagon pieces from each of the stacks one from the first stack.  Once the first pieces where sewn, I then grabbed pieces from the second stack.

Once I had the second match piece sewn, I snipped the first row pieces off and Pressed all the seams open.

Then continued the stitch on the next piece from the first stack. Repeating the steps over and over until the rows were complete, pressed thoroughly.  Then started sewing the next couple rows until all the rows were ready to be sewn together.

Once my rows were ready to be sewn together, the process of sewing the rows went fast.

My pillow-top is now complete, ready to quilted.

Here are my finished pillow and the back of the pillow.  I had fun machine quilting this project; these projects have been great for practicing my skills.  

I can't wait until today to start my next project in the Journey to Nebula Quilt Along.

Tina

Journey to Nebula Quilt Along - Lucky Charm - Cutting Star 60 way

 This week the Journey 2 Nebula is starting a new project.  We are making the "Lucky Charm" pillow by Jaybird Quilts. This pattern uses 5" charms or 2 1/2" strips to make Half Hexagons.  

The pattern is written by Hex N More Ruler by Jaybird Quilts.  I will be using the Studio 180 Design Star 60 tool with leftover 2 1/2" strips from the last project, Island Batik "Islander Batik" Collection.  

Right Handed

Left Handed

After referring to the Half Hexagon Cutting Chart, I found the 2 1/2" strip width under the Precision Column.  Then moved one column to the right titled Bottom Horizontal Line  (Precision) and found the 4 1/2", this would be the number we will be using on the tool to line up the tool on the strips.

Place the folded strip on your cutting mat, starting on the left side of the strip for Right Hand and the right side for Left-Handed. 

Position the Star 60 tool on the fabric aligning the 4 1/2" Horizontal line on the strip.  This is the number we found in the chart.  This will give us the exact size of the hexagon we need. 

Once your tool is in position, trim up both sides of the tool.  

Right Handed

Left Handed

To cut the next half-hexagon, rotate the tool 180° and align the 4 1/2" horizontal guideline. Cut up the next side.

Continue doing this until you get all the half hexagons you need.  You can get 10 Half Hexagons out of a strip.



For this project, you need a total of 60 half hexagons.  So choose 6 different strips.

Right Handed

Left Handed

Now we need to trim off the tips on the bottom. Place your half Hexagon with the longest end of the half hexagon on the cutting mat. Then position the 4" horizontal line on the top of the Half Hexagon and aligning the 4 1/2" Diamond Point Guidelines along the sides of the Hexagon. 

Trim up both sides.



Continue with the rest of the Half Hexagons.  I just love how easy it is to cut out and trim the tips of the half hexagons.  

Next week, we will continue making our Lucky Charm pillow.  See you next week.

Tina

A Whole New Studio

Before

For a long time, I wanted to give my sewing studio a facelift, so to speak. I have been wanting to paint and move furniture around so I can have a filming area for videotaping.

 So over the labor day weekend, with my husband's help, we began the process.  I started a couple days before packing and moving all my sewing supplies, fabric, and machines out.  We also started moving the furniture a couple days before, so I could shampoo the carpets.  

Saturday, we began the process by a trip to Home Depot and Lowes to get paint and new trim boards.  Then we started the task of painting. It took a couple of coats of paint.

It starting to look like a whole new room.  The paint makes the room much brighter.  Now to add the trim boards around the room.  I really hated the old dark wood trim that we originally put in place. The new trim boards really add to modern to the feel.  

Now it was time to reset up the furniture in a different configuration. 

I set up the filming area first, then add the other sewing desk for my primary sewing machine.  Next, I added a curtain rod up high behind the filming area to hang a quilt from.

We placed the cutting table on the other side, along with my ironing board stand, after setting up all the lights and camera tripods in between the cutting table and filming table.  We decided we needed to make a filming stand that we could place all the filming equipment on.

So this last weekend, my husband build a 5' x 6' frame that goes across the filming table.  We bought some clip-on tabletop stands for the Led Light stand and a ring light for the camera.  It is sturdy and excellent. We can leave everything set up all the time.  Works perfectly.

Finally, we took one of the Grid walls I used at quilt shows and hung it on the wall.  I then added all my Studio 180 and Sue Pelland tools. 

I'm so happy with my new studio,  now to get back to work and start making more quilts, and taping some video to share with you all.

Tina