Hi everyone!
Are you excited to start the first block of another QAL?
This one is called Travel Round Robin, partly because the fabrics I got from connecting threads have a travel theme and I’m going on vacation in August, plus traditionally a round robin is sort of a travel quilt, a group would decide to do a round robin and each person made her own center block and sent it on to the next person who would then add a round and send it on to someone else, often this is all secret until it’s a finished big top!
I’ve also hosted a few rounds of round robins and they are quite fun!!
For the first time, I decided to show you what the finished quilt will look like here where there’s also a link to the fabric and QUBE requirements etc.
It involves a lot of qube dies, you don’t HAVE to have them all, but it makes everything SEW much easier! I will provide rotary cutting directions from EQ as much as possible.
As you know my fabrics are travel themed from connecting threads.
My color A is black 1/2yd
B is off white 1 1/2yd
C is light blue-ish 1yd
D is a medium/dark blue-ish 1 yd
E is a border print 3/4yd
F is red dot 1/4yd
G is red 1/2 yd
H is yellow 1/2 yd
(I ordered more of each fabric just to be on the safe side and also CT fabrics are inexpensive so I often round up to the nearest yard)
You use whatever colors you want to use and swap the colors around if you want to, The black and white are probably the most important, you want those to be dark and light.
For block #1
(A Swoon block or Star of Bethlehem block)
you’ll need fabrics A (black), B (White) and C (light blue) and F red dot.
And this week we’re using the 8″ QUBE set and 1 1/2″ strip cutter (or rotary cut those strips)
First with fabric A (Black) Cut (2) 1 1/2″ WOF -width of fabric strips. Trim one to (2) 16 1/2″ and the other to (2) 18 1/2″ and lay these aside for the borders.
Cut (1) 5 1/4″ WOF strip, fold in half and lay on die #3 and cut out (4) triangles
With fabric B (white) cut (1) 5 3/4″ WOF strip and lay a single layer on die #4 and cut out 4 triangles
Cut (1) 3 3/4″ WOF strip, fold to 6 or 8 layers depending on which machine you have, lay on die #5 and cut out (28) triangles, you may have to use a bit of the large strip from above.
With fabric C (light blue) cut (1) 5 3/4″ WOF strip, also lay on die #4 and cut out 4 triangles.
Then lay on die #8 and cut out (4) rectangles.
Cut (1) 3 3/4″ WOF strip and cut out (4) of die #5 triangles
and (4) of die #6 squares
With fabric F (red dot)
cut (1) 5″ WOF Strip, cut out 1 of die #1 square
Cut (1) 3 3/4″ WOF strip and cut out (24) of die #5 triangles
Here’s the rotary cutting directions- hopefully you can see the screenshot.
Now onto the sewing!
First sew together 8 sets of HSTs from the red and white (B and F) #5 small triangles like this.
ALWAYS PRESS YOUR SEAMS OPEN BTW!!
Also make flying geese with each of the #4 triangles, the blue (C) triangles get white (B) small triangles as it’s “geese wings”
The white (B) gets red (F) wings
and then I also added corner triangles to the HSTs from above, notice it’s 4 of each direction, it’s sort of near the corners of the block- keep looking if you’re confused 😉
Also sew around the #6 on point square, one corner is the same blue (C) fabric and the opposite corner is white (B) and the other two corners are red (F)
Also sew the blue (C) rectangle between the flying geese blocks like this
On both block sections the blue sort of looks like a little house or building!
There’s 4 of each.
Now you add the odd HST sections from above to the side and top of the on top square blocks like this, again there’s 4 blocks, now it’s starting to look like something!!
and then add the large black (A) triangles to the corners.
At this point I laid out the sections to make sure everything looked right and it’s great!
Then sew it together like this!
The block is now 16 1/2″ x 16 1/2″
and lastly add the border strips, it doesn’t matter if you do the sides first or the top and bottom, I personally like the sides to be added first, then the top and bottom.
Now the block is 18 1/2″ x 18 1/2″
If you haven’t already joined, please join the QUBE group on FB, that’s where I’ll post new blocks each week after they go live on my blog.
Have fun!
