Blog | Bonjour Quilts

Austin House Mini Quilts

November 22, 2016 By Kirsty 6 Comments

All of us Down Under are lucky enough to have Carolyn Friedlander visiting Australia at the moment. I have been known to use her fabrics just a tad:

She is one of my favourite fabric designers and I was so happy to snag a spot at one of her workshops a couple of weekends ago.

Carolyn lead us through her Austin House Quilt pattern, which is a very achievable foundation paper pieced pattern.

When I first saw the quilt my eye probably twitched. All those little pieces. FPP. Arrgh!

Carolyn guided the class through the FPP process and it was nowhere near as hard as I was expecting. By the second house I was actually enjoying myself, dang nabbit!

I decided to turn my two houses into mini quilts (for my future mini quilt wall – you know, the one I’ll have when I finally get my own sewing room).

If you’d like to do the same as I’ve done here:

add 1-1/4″ background strips to the top and sides of your house block.

add a 4-1/2″ strip of ground to the bottom of the block.

bind with 2-1/4″ binding strips.

I spray basted these (so easy!) and gave them a quick iron to set the spray. The quilting is straight and dense – it adds some lovely texture to the pieces. I used a hera marker to mark 6-8 lines across the mini quilt and then used my walking foot to line up against them.

I backed my minis with more of Carolyn’s Carkai fabric and enjoyed hand stitching my binding while watching ~~a cinematic, thought-provoking movie~~ Transformers Prime (the 5 yr old got to the remote before me, sigh).

I had a wonderful time at Carolyn’s class and would thoroughly recommend you attend one if you have the chance!

Speaking of Carolyn Friedlander – her new, 6 piece, linen/cotton fabric line called Euclid is gorgeous. My next pattern (sneak peek below) will feature a sample made from Euclid and Essex linen….a winning combo!

The pattern is called Deco Diamonds and I’m working hard to have it out before Christmas. Wish me luck! – and don’t forget to subscribe to be the first to know about it.

Connections Quilt in Orange

November 11, 2016 By Kirsty 4 Comments

In my last post I showed you my latest quilt pattern, called Connections. This lap-sized, teal version was made with 4 colours.

The teal version is made entirely with prints (although I made sure that every print read as a single colour. If you use prints with too many colours, you run the risk of the overall pattern not having enough contrast.)

The version I have to show you today is only made with 3 colours:

This baby quilt sized version is made in tan, white and orange. The tan fabrics are all solids and the white is actually a single solid white. The orange fabrics are predominantly prints.

I took my tan fabrics and divided them into dark and light piles so that the rings (dark tan) were discernible from the corner diamonds (light tan). The contrast is not strong between the two, but I think it works in those two areas. If two such similar colours were used between the background and the rings, for instance, the lack of contrast would make for a very different outcome.

I quilted this one myself and it was really easy to do. The grid configuration of the pattern meant it was very quick to mark out lines with my hera marker. I quilted a large scale diagonal grid through the rings:

Then I went back and sewed lines within the inner and outer edges of the dark tan rings (using my walking foot edge along the seams as a guide – no line marking required).

If sewing within the rings doesn’t appeal to you (burying threads – yuck) then you could simply increase the grid density as seen below:The backing was pieced from half yard cuts and the binding was scrappy – made from all the orange offcuts of the quilt top.

To see the meaning behind the name and design of the Connections quilt, pop over to read my last post (and see the teal, lap-sized version in more detail).

If you would like to sew your own Connections quilt, infused with your own special meaning, you can find the pattern here.

Happy sewing,

Kirsty x

Connections Quilt

November 11, 2016 By Kirsty Leave a Comment

I have a new quilt pattern to share with you – it’s called Connections.

Connections. There’s a story behind its design.

This pattern is made of rings connected in many directions. To me, these rings represent our lives. The corner diamonds joining them are all those things that sustain and support our lives – our friends, jobs, dreams, goals and passions.

The thickest and strongest connection, shown in yellow, is that which means the most to you. The one thing that keeps your life together and guides it in the right direction (you’ll notice the yellow connections only run in one direction). Perhaps that overarching, guiding force is your family. Or maybe, for you, that directing force is God. I suspect for many, it would be both.

Connections is very suitable for beginner quilters – it’s a two block pattern that comes with instructions for 5 sizes – baby, lap (seen here in teal), twin, queen and king.

Baby Quilt Layout

Twin Quilt Layout

Queen/King Quilt Layout

Connections is fat quarter friendly and a great stash buster. All the blocks have nested seams which are always such a joy to sew with. The teal, lap-sized version you see in the photos is made with 4 different colours, but I also have a 3 colour version to show you (coming up in my next post).

I asked Kelly of the Quilting Machine to long-arm quilt this for me with an edge-to-edge orange peel design. I really love how it turned out. I think the rounded quilting is a nice contrast to the very geometric design.

I backed the quilt with Carolyn Friedlander wide back fabric left over from a previous quilt, teamed with a line of citrus yellow (an AGF Squared Elements fabric). The binding was scrappy, taken from the remnants of all the teal FQs used in the quilt top.

If you would like to sew your own Connections quilt, infused with your own special meaning, you can find the pattern here.

Happy sewing,

Kirsty x

To see more on the orange version, including how I quilted it, see here.

Plus Side Quilt – With a Twist

October 15, 2016 By Kirsty 20 Comments

I’ve been wanting to make another version of my The Plus Side quilt pattern for a while now (pattern can be found here).

I really like the layout of my last one (in Carkai by Carolyn Friedlander) and wanted to try it again with different colours:

I went with a scrappy collection of FQs in fuchsia, lime and navy, with various low volume prints and light solids.

I’m calling this layout “With a Twist” as it seems to suit the patterns created:

I went into this quilt uncertain of the layout I’d choose. While I love the Carkai version, I felt I should probably try something new.

One of the best parts of this quilt pattern is playing with the block placement and orientation before sewing it together. Once I completed all my blocks, I spent a night messing around with them on my design wall. All the following designs are made with the same 20 blocks. This was how the blocks looked when I first threw them on the wall – they remind me of blobs of paint coming together on a painter’s palette:

Then I went back to the original radiating diamond pattern that I’d used in the Carkai version:

Next, I tried the same pattern, but with the darker colours forming the central diamond:

Next was a cross formation (and I briefly considered sewing another row of blocks to put across the top to make the pattern symmetrical):

But it was too late at night for that so I decided to make the cross unsymmetrical in both directions:

Then I tried making some diagonal stripes:

And some diagonal stripes in like colours:

And again, just with the corner blocks swapped:

And finally, an offset arrow head for good measure:

By this stage, I was ready for bed and not sure which design I was most fond of.

The next day, I put a quick call out on Instagram asking for people’s opinions on 3 of the designs – the Radiating Diamond (dark centre), the Centred Cross and the With a Twist layout. I folded the laundry and made a cup of tea and came back to see that the majority were liking With a Twist. I was pretty happy with that as I did want to try something new, so I sat right down and sewed the layout together into a quilt top. When I’d finished, I popped back in to Instagram to see that Radiating Diamond had surged ahead in the popularity stakes….ooops, but there was no way I was unpicking it!

(My 12 yr old graciously agreed to hold this quilt up for me as my husband was away. His arms were getting sore in the above picture 😉

The main reason I liked the With a Twist layout was the secondary patterns formed around the central, light diagonal. There are Vs and Ls and triangles – lots of defined areas that would be fun to quilt, and very do-able on my own Janome.

I ended up quilting this fairly densely – so much so that I had to wet and block the quilt top before I sewed on the binding, just to reset the edges.

I began by outlining all the “quilting zones” I’d decided on within the quilt. This not only defined those zones, but also stabilised the whole quilt before I went to town with the quilting. I always like to work from the centre of the quilt outwards, so I sewed the black lines first, red lines second and green lines last.

I filled in the zones in the same order – black, then red, then green. I used a light beige/tan thread which blended in quite well.

The black zone held a truss or frame pattern. The red zones contained straight line quilting that echoed the original stabilising lines. The green was a spiky, starry kind of affair that could be done in one pass because I’m too lazy to bury threads. This diagram is not exact, but it gives you the idea:

That diagram looks totally crazy-pants, but I assure you it looks a lot calmer in real life with the beige thread!

All the quilting was completed with a walking foot. I either used the block seams as my guide, or as in the case with the truss section I used a hera marker to mark out lines.

As mentioned before, with all the dense quilting and pushing and pulling required, the edges were undulating by the end. I put the quilt sandwich in the washing machine with several colour catchers and filled the bowl to just cover the quilt. I agitated lightly by hand to be sure there were no trapped air pockets, and then drained and lightly spun the quilt. The whole thing took 10 minutes. I tacked the quilt sandwich out on the carpet and pinned it in place with pushpins. They didn’t work very well (kept popping out), but thankfully just smoothing it all out into shape and letting it dry overnight made a big difference.

I made a scrappy binding from all my FQ remnants (after the blocks are cut from each FQ as per the pattern, there is enough for a strip of binding from each) and then hand sewed the binding down.

I really love the colours in this one, the fuchsia packs such a good punch.

This version of the pattern finishes at 48″ x 60″ (crib size) but the pattern includes instructions for lap, twin, queen and king size as well. It’s quick to sew up and is definitely beginner friendly. If you’d like to make your own The Plus Side quilt then you can purchase the pattern here.

Hope you’re having a great weekend and happy sewing!

Kirsty

Happy Skull Halloween Pillow Project

October 15, 2016 By Kirsty 2 Comments

Boo! Halloween is drawing near – if you’re looking for a quick, not-too-scary sewing project, I have one for you.

This project came to be when I wanted to add some Halloween decor to my little boys’ room, but not something that would terrify them. So many of the Halloween props in stores are, in my opinion, way over the top for younger children. There’s no way I’d want to sleep with a voice-activated severed head in my bedroom!

Ergo, the Happy Skull Pillow. He’s a skull, but he’s smiling in a benevolent, I’m-not-going-to-eat-you way. Perfect.

This is a quick and easy appliqué project that produces a 14″ pillow. You can grab the PDF by putting your details in below.

Happy sewing!

Kirsty

Wildfire Quilt – Blogger’s Quilt Festival

September 21, 2016 By Kirsty 17 Comments

It’s that time of the year again – the Blogger’s Quilt Festival over at Amy’s Creative Side.

I love going through the entries and seeing all the amazing quilts people have been designing and/or sewing…so inspiring!

I’ve put my Wildfire quilt into the Modern Quilting category.

This quilt is made from two fabrics – a tan solid and an Alison Glass fabric (Speckled in Tomato from the Handcrafted 2 line).

The pattern is one of my own (found here), a log cabin on point design called Diamonds in the Deep.

It looks like I spent a great deal of time splicing in all those little pieces of tan in the red log cabin “logs”, but actually Alison did all the work with the fabric pattern. Thanks Alison! 😉

Wildfire was quilted by Kelly Elliott of the Quilt Machine, with a flame edge-to-edge design (of course).

The backing is Amy Butler and the binding is more of the Speckled in Tomato.

Enjoy the Blogger’s Quilt Festival!

Quilt name: Wildfire
Pattern: Diamonds in the Deep (can be purchased here)
Size: 52″ x 78″
Quilted by: Kelly Elliott

Sweet Stars Sewalong

September 8, 2016 By Kirsty 4 Comments

Today is my stop on Peta’s (She Quilts Alot) Sweet Stars Sewalong – thank you for dropping by! My name’s Kirsty and this is my blog here at Bonjour Quilts.

You can find Peta’s lovely Sweet Stars quilt pattern over here, if you haven’t got yourself a copy yet.

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

Today I’m looking at a new technique (to me) to make HSTs 8 at a time, which is exactly the number of HSTs you need for the weathervane block in Peta’s pattern.

There are lots of tutorials all over the web about this method, but most create HSTs at the exact measurement needed for the pattern. My method of operating when it comes to HSTs has always been to make oversized units which I then trim back to ensure super accurate and square blocks. Then, if your quarter inch seam is correct, you will get perfect points every time, no thought required. Yippee!

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

So let’s get started.

This method requires you to take two fabric squares, sew 4 seams and then make 4 cuts to make 8 HSTs. That’s a good work to output ratio in my books.

First of all, grab your pattern and check out Step 2c – there you will see the measurement that your trimmed HSTs need to be.

Take that number (in inches) and multiply it by 2, then add 1. Bingo, that’s the size your two fabric squares need to be.

Take one of the squares and draw lines between both sets of diagonal points with a pencil or hera marker.

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

Place the two squares right sides together. If you’re a pinner, you can pin along the sides of the square.

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

Sew a seam a quarter inch either side of both of the diagonal lines. Press the square to set your seams and settle down any waves in the fabric.

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

Line the square up with your cutting board lines and cut the square exactly in half on both axes to form 4 squares.

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

Then cut along all of the drawn diagonal lines to give 8 triangles. Open up the triangles to give 8 HSTs!

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

Press and trim your HST units as Peta shows you in the pattern.

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

Now, here is my top tip for spot-on HSTs. It really comes down to two things – 1. correct block size, and 2. perfectly bisected corners.

Going deeper: 1. Block size is really important in that if it’s not correct you end up pushing and pulling and repositioning while sewing your blocks together. You’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever sewn a 3-7/8″ HST to a 4″ block (because your HST didn’t turn out so well) and you’ve had to fiddle to get that missing 1/8″ absorbed by the seam allowance. Quite often it leads to a wonky or chopped off triangle point. Good news: it’s easy to produce correct sized blocks when you oversize and trim back.

2. Bisected corners. By that I mean the two corners where the two fabrics meet – they need to meet at a 45 degree angle that ends smack-bang on the middle of that corner:

Bonjour Quits Mini Quilt HST sewing tips

If your corner is lop-sided as an unfinished block, it will stay lop-sided in the finished piece unless you mess around with your seam widths to account for it. It can be done, but it’s a pain and slow work. It’s much easier to pay attention to your points when trimming your HSTs so that you get them straight down the middle of the corners. Then when you sew them together with even 1/4″ seams, you’ll have perfect points.

(And I’m using perfect pretty loosely here – because I believe in that old adage “Done is better than perfect”.)

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

For this blog hop, I decided to make a foursquare mini quilt from the weathervane block in Peta’s pattern. Once I had my 4 lots of 8 HSTs prepped, I went ahead and made four weathervane blocks, with one little fabric change – I swapped out the central fabric for the background fabric.

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

I dipped into my Carolyn Friedlander stash (mainly Carkai) for the weathervanes and used some left over Carolyn Friedlander cross-hatch wideback for the background fabric.

I sewed the four blocks together (to give an 18.5″ x 18.5″ mini) and then made my quilt sandwich. To quilt, I went with a slightly wavy cross hatch pattern, to echo the background fabric, as you can see below:

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

I couldn’t decide which colour to use for binding so I went for a no-binding look. Problem solved 🙂 I used 2″ binding strips here, as I always do with mini quilts.

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

If you’d like to make your Sweet Stars quilt in the fabrics Peta uses on the cover of her pattern (below), you can find the quilt kit, featuring Sweet Orchard Fabrics by Sedef Imer for Riley Blake Designs over here: http://www.fatquartershop.com/sweet-stars-kit

(And you can get the backing set at the Fat Quarter Shop, too: http://www.fatquartershop.com/backing-set-for-sweet-stars-kit)

Don’t forget to visit the other stops on the Sewalong:

29 August: Peta from She Quilts A Lot gets the party started.

1 Sept: Amy from Diary of a Quilter selects fabrics to make a beautiful quilt

5 Sept: Christine from Stitching Revival teaches the easiest (and most proven) trick to help with accuracy

8 Sept: Kirsty from Bonjour Quilts helps with HSTs <—- you are here!

12 Sept: Kimberly from the Fat Quarter Shop showcases the Sawtooth Star block

15 Sept: Sedef from Down Grapevine Lane teaches easy corner triangles

19 Sept: Nadra from Ellis and Higgs explains quarter square triangles & the Ohio Star block

22 Sept: Cindy from Hyacinth Quilt Designs shows how to sew perfect, wobble-free borders

26 Sept: Jemima from Tied with a Ribbon gives machine & free motion quilting tips

29 Sept: Debbie from Happy Little Cottage teaches fast and accurate machine binding to get your project finished

30 Sept: Peta from She Quilts A Lot wraps up and hosts a Giveaway!

Thanks for dropping by and happy sewing!

Kirsty x

Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts makes a mini quilt with the Sweet Stars quilt pattern by Peta of She Quilts Alot

Marti Michell Mini Quilt Blog Hop

September 2, 2016 By Kirsty 2 Comments

Well hello there! Welcome to my stop on the Marti Michell Mini Quilt Blog Hop.

If you’re participating in the Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt Sew Along (with Angie of Gnome Angel), you’d be aware of Marti Michell’s helpful templates. The templates are not only useful for the Farmer’s Wife blocks, they can be used to make a whole range of blocks, some of which you can see on this Mini Quilt Blog Hop. So don’t let those babies gather dust in your drawer, pull them out and make some Mini Quilts to decorate your walls!

The Coral Mini Quilt I have for you today finishes at 18″ x 18″ and uses the Perfect Patchwork Templates Set A.

The quilt is quite simple – made only of half square triangles (HSTs) and quarter square triangles (QSTs). The use of colour is where we get to have some fun and bring out a secondary pattern of rectangles on the diagonal.

This mini is also a great scrap buster, too. So let’s get started.

Firstly, the mini quilt is made from scraps in four colour groups – dark coral, pink, pale yellow and mustard.

Take the A2 and A4 templates from Set A and cut the following amounts from your fabric scraps:

Take the larger, A2 triangles and sew them together (see below) to form the HSTs. Press toward the darker fabric:

Take the A4 triangles and sew them together to form the QSTs. When joining the first quarters together, press toward the darker quarter. Then the seams will nest when the two halves are sewn together. Press the final seam open or to the side, as preferred.

Now that all the individual units are complete, lay them out in a 6 x 6 arrangement as shown below:

Sew the rows together, pressing the seams in successive rows to alternate sides. Sew the rows together, nesting the seams. Press the seams open or to the side as preferred (you’ll need to swirl the seams to reduce bulk if you press to the side).

A mini quilt is a great candidate for spray basting – you can find a how-to on this technique over here.

Quilting is quick and easy with this one. I quilted either side of the seams that form the rectangles with a dark coral thread. I lined up the side of my walking foot with the seams and used them as a guide. I worked from the middle lines out to each edge. I then changed thread to a mustardy-gold and sewed another line in between each coral quilt line and the seam.

Binding was with a dark coral and pink print. I cut my strips at 2″ as I felt it created a binding more in proportion to the mini quilt. Five 2″ x 20″ strips from a FQ will be enough to do it.

And there you have it, a fun little mini that plays with colour and helps reduce your scrap pile.

I really wanted to make another version in blue/grey solids but time got away from me. If you do make one of these in a different colour way, I’d love, love, love to see it!

If you like this tutorial, make sure you sign up for my emails so you don’t miss any in the future.

Here are all the details of the other hops on this tour 😉 :

12 August 2016 Angie @ GnomeAngel.com

19 August 2016 Tonya @ The Crafty Mummy

26 August 2016 Lucy @ Charm About You

02 September 2016 Kirsty @ Bonjour Quilts <— you are here

09 September 2016 Cat @ Cat + Vee

16 September 2016 Nathalie @ Les Ouvrages de Nat

23 September 2016 Alyce @ Blossom Heart Quilts

30 September 2016 Peta @ She Quilts A Lot

07 October 2016 Lisa @ Sweet Little Pretties

14 October 2016 Rachel @ Wooden Spoon Quilts

21 October 2016 Raylee @ Sunflower Quilting

28 October 2016 Lisa @ In The Boon Docks

04 November 2016 Marti Michell

There’s also the chance to win a Marti Michell prize pack if you enter your mini quilt (made following any of the tutorials) into the running. You can do that by submitting your mini’s photo:

to the link-up tool that each of the participating bloggers will post on their sites on Friday, 18 November, or

to the specific album in the Farmer’s Wife 1930’s Sampler Quilt Facebook Group, or

on Instagram with the hashtag #MartiMichellMiniQuiltmania and tagging Angie @gnomeangel) and Marti Michell (@MartiMichell) in the photo.

Colour Explosion Quilt Tutorial

August 2, 2016 By Kirsty 50 Comments

Hello! Are you having a bright, colourful day? If not, I’ve just the thing for you – a Colour Explosion Quilt (or a Color Explosion Quilt, depending on where you’re tuning in from).
This quilt pattern is for a fun baby quilt I recently made; it measures 36″ x 48″ when finished. It’s quick to sew up and easy to adapt to your colour preferences.

Download the pattern for this quilt here:

You’ll need 16 fat quarters to make this quilt. I’ve divided my quilt into warm and cool colours, but you could choose whatever you like (this one could work well)*. One thing to remember though, is that you need to make sure there is contrast between the fabrics in each row. Each fabric should also contrast against the triangles it touches in the row either above or below.

Here’s my first version of the quilt, which shows you what happens if you don’t take care with the contrast:

You can see the second and outermost rows on the cool side of the quilt don’t have adequate contrast – as a result they read as if they are a solid mass of colour. To me this quilt is about movement as much as it’s about colour, so I want the eye to move quickly from the centre outwards. The solid rows were an impediment to this and that’s why they had to go. I think the revised version is much better.

So, 16 fat quarters. 8 cool and 8 warm. Contrast between fabrics that touch each other.

Each row has a flying geese unit and four HST units. The geese, unfinished, measure 6.5″ x 12.5″ and the HSTs 6.5″ square (they are 6″ x 12″ and 6″ square respectively once sewn into a quilt top).

If you have a particular way you like to make your HST and flying geese blocks, please use that method. I like to make oversized units which I then trim back to size (with Bloc_loc rulers).

I decided to quilt this one with straight lines and I really love how it turned out. I didn’t mark any lines at all, I just used the width of my walking foot as my measure and made friends with the word “organic”. As I came close to my pivot points, I slowed down and used a little ruler to check my distance (the distance from my needle [centred] to the outer edge of my walking foot is half an inch, so I pivoted when I was half an inch out from the next line).

I quilted lots of V lines in the top and bottom centre portions of the quilt, then either side of that were two U units. Finally, the last little triangles at the very edges of the centre were filled with smaller Vs.

I used three different colours of thread on each half of the quilt – tangerine, pink, apricot and then turquoise, light blue and teal.

For binding, I went with a navy blue. Half a yard will do it, easily (5 strips 2-1/4″ x WOF). If you prefer 2.5″ binding you’ll still be fine with a half yard.

If you’d like this pattern in PDF format, I have it here below for you.

That’s probably enough from me for today! I hope you’re having a great week and find some time for a little (or a lot) of sewing.

Until next time,
Kirsty

*This is an affiliate link, which means if you purchase through the link I receive a small, but much appreciated, commission. This is at no cost to you – Amazon pays for it (thanks, Amazon :). These commissions help keep Bonjour Quilts’ website expenses paid, so thank you!

Marcella (#56) – Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt Sew Along

July 21, 2016 By Kirsty 4 Comments

Hello, and welcome to my stop on the Farmer’s Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt Sew Along! Today I am making block #56 – Marcella.

For all the background information on this Sew Along, head over to Angie’s (GnomeAngel).

For the Marti Michell Conversion Chart for this block, head over to Marti’s blog.

This Sew Along is sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop (where I bought my fabric for this block).

Marcella is a relatively simple block and can be either paper pieced, made from the book’s templates, or made with the assistance of a Marti Michell template. I decided to use the latter method.

I started out choosing three fabrics that had adequate contrast, and then cut the required blocks (as outlined in Marti’s Conversion Chart).

As an aside, I still love this super-versatile navy Pat Bravo Artisan fabric so much (even after staring at it for almost a year). It’s true love.

I used my template to cut my first 6 triangles:

Then I cut the final two triangles from the soon-to-be-waste fabric on my main block:

Next task is to create the HST units:

Then add the wings:

Marti gives instructions on how to join the side portions to the main body of the block. As you can see by the perforations below, I managed to sew it on the wrong side and had to unpick. Sigh.

When sewing this seam, pay attention to where it crosses the seams on the central triangle. If you can manage to land your seam a millimetre to the right of the intersection of the triangle seams, you triangle point will be spot on.

Once both wings have been sewn on and pressed (I pressed toward the inner strip) your block is complete.

Those who are regulars around here will know that I’ve been exploring using these blocks in a four-square layout. While I didn’t get around to sewing four of these blocks, through the wonders of modern technology I can show you what a Marcella four-square would look like, depending on how you orientate your blocks: