Blocks of the Month for February

Since I've run out of batting, I've been using my quilting time to get ahead piecing blocks for my colour quilt. I made the first 12 blocks of this quilt last year as part of the Quilt Matters Colour My World Challenge, and this year I'd planned to make one complimentary colour block each month, and then quilt both. Instead, I've been making two colour blocks, but quilting none. I hope to fix that soon! (Although, if I keep this going for just three more months, I'll have all of the blocks pieced which also sounds pretty exciting.)

I am sharing my progress so far with the folks at Let's Get Acquainted Monday, and my fellow quilters working on the Try Something New Sampler at The Cute Life, which provided the inspiration for this month's orange block.

You may remember my improvised orange block from last September. This was my absolute favourite of the series. I added a strip of background fabric to it this month and it's now ready for quilting.

To complement this block, I made two of the Try Something New sampler blocks out of the same fabrics. I chose M-R's trapunto block, and Amy's bargello block. There are other designs from this sampler that might show up in future blocks.

I didn't have water soluble thread on hand for the trapunto block, so I used regular thread that I can pull out later. In other words, don't worry, those lopsided white thread boxes will be gone once this block is quilted, and you'll be able to see how nice and puffy the squares are (at least I hope so, it's my first ever trapunto attempt).

Since both of these blocks were exactly half the size that I needed, I joined them together into one block for my colour quilt. I like the amount of negative space in this block. I think it will look great once I've quilted that negative space to give it texture.

The second block I made this month is based on the little houses from the Bee in My Bonnet Row Along. I have to admit, I'm not entirely happy with this block. I think the cutting instructions for the chimneys and windows somehow got switched around. It might have been a mistake on my part, but if it was, I wasn't able to find it when I re-checked my cut pieces. So if you're planning to make this block, avoid an hour of frustration and do the math before you start cutting just in case!

I only figured it out when all of the fabric had been cut, and most of the pieces had been sewn together. The bottom section of each house was a bit too small, and the top was a bit too big. It would have been hard to adjust at this stage without re-cutting some pieces (or cutting the points off both roofs) and I wasn't about to do either of those things. As a result, some sections are baggier than others, with corners that aren't quite pointy. Luckily most of that will disappear with some dense quilting. At least it came out looking cute!

This little house block goes with my TARDIS blue wonky log cabin from last November. I gave that block some extra sashing to make it the right size and it came out looking even more awesome than before. Yay! (I still wish I'd refrained from using the dinosaurs though...)

That's eight blocks so far, and four more almost complete for March (this month it's white & cyan). If you missed the first four blocks for January (red & grey), here they are: