Part 2 is mainly appliqué. Here’s where we finished up last time.
Now we are going to appliqué some strips down the centre of the middle blue strips. You will need four pieces of fabric 6.5″ X 1.25″. Take each strip and press it in half. Then open it out.
Then press one edge into the centre.
And then repeat with other edge.
When you have done that for all four strips, get your block and mark (I used pencil) the centre line.
Then line up the fold in your strip with that line and pin it to the block.
As you can see you don’t want it to go all the way into the centre and you can let it hang over the edge of the block. Then appliqué the strip and repeat with the others.
Now we are going to make the diamonds for corners. To make your template, draw a square 4″ X 4″ and mark 1″ from each corner like so.
Here is a link to the printable graph paper I used which is marked in half inch squares:
Then draw lines from the top left corner to the 1″ from the left mark on the bottom of the square, from the 1″ from the bottom on the left to the bottom right corner, from the bottom right corner to the 1″ from the right on the top of the square and from the 1″ below the top right corner to the top left corner. See below.
Transfer this diamond by tracing onto freezer paper, four times and cut out.
Take your chosen fabric and place the freezer paper on the wrong side of the fabric, shiny side up. Cut around the shape leaving around 1/4″ extra. Take your iron and press the seam allowance onto the freezer paper as we have done in previous blocks. Then position your diamonds, freezer paper side down onto the outer squares and press first from the front to stick them in place and then from the back to secure them. Then appliqué them to the background.
Then do the same with the other three diamonds. Cut the background away and remove the freezer paper as we did for previous appliqué and press.
Now we’re going to place a series of 5 circles down the vertical line. Four will be half and half, black and pink and one will be quartered.
We make the circles by sewing a strip of the black and a strip of the pink together then cutting it into a square of fabric big enough to cover a 1.5″ perfect circle template.
Remember the centre of the joined fabric is the stitch mark NOT the edge of the seam. It may seem obvious but it’s an easy mistake to make.
Take some thread and sew a running stitch around the circle leaving the thread in the needle when you have completed the circle.
Trim off the square edges then pull the thread tight around the circle.
I sewed a couple of cross-circle stitches to hold it tightly in place and finished with a couple of backstitches.
This is what your circle should look like front he front.
Measure your block so you can position your circles equidistant from one another and pin in place. Make sure you place the black fabric half on the side nearest to the pink square edge and vice versa.
The appliqué the circles down and cut the background away to remove the Perfect Circle templates.
To make the central circle take two pieces of joined fabric and sew them together to form quadrants, then use the technique mentioned above to create the circle and appliqué it in place.
Your finished block should look like this.
Like this:
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Now, because we sewed four blocks together before we QAYGed, we need to sew four blocks together for the backing to maintain the patchwork look. Optional though. If you want to just use one piece of fabric for the back that’s fine too.
