SAHRR Prompt 1 Hourglass Block

I love designing in EQ8 (especially using the Symmetry tool where magic happens) and I really love designing in my graph paper notebook (I do love colouring, rather zen-like still at my age), but there is something at another level of magic about designing as I go on the design wall. It kind of combines the magic and zen of the first two. Every time I do a SAHRR, it happens, and it happened in this first round where Brenda of Songbird Designs (I'm linking this post up there) gave us the prompt to add the hourglass block, also known as a quarter-square-triangle, aka QST.  Here is where I am, first prompt complete.

 You may think, okay, magic... and? Because this doesn't look that magical. Well, let me explain.

Several of these photos are on Instagram, minus much explanation. This first one shows where I've pulled from. I mainly use scraps for my SAHRRs, and I give myself the added challenge of figuring out what to do when I minimal amounts. Last year's SAHRR used maybe eight to ten different burgundy fabrics. As long as their tone is close, it works; in fact, I think it works better as you then get depth. So here you see the three colours I planned to use in the first round, pulled from the fabric I used to join the four orphan blocks together. 

Not much yardage here but several of them are about the same tone so off I went, cutting squares without measuring if I'd have enough of the three I chose from these three piles.

I really appreciate what Kathleen of Kathleen McMusing does in her SAHRR updates each week, give us several options for using the prompted block, as well as sending us to links for construction or more ideas. 

I used the Cluck Cluck Sew chart Kathleen linked as a starting point but after making the first two QSTs, I knew I could make the starting squares a tad smaller, which is important when working with a limited amount of fabric. So my QSTs needed to finish at 3"; therefore I started with 4 ⅜" squares. I still had plenty to trim these nice and square.

I had to add ½" coping strip all the way around my 20" finished centre to make 21", which is divisible by three, so seven QSTs per side. I set the first four hourglass blocks in place, and immediately thought stars!

 

However, that might take me in too similar of a direction as last year's SAHRR, so I continued making more.

I used a combination of pressing to one side, spinning seams (LOVE!) and pressing open the seams that join the hourglass units together. I'm missing my little Steamfast iron which tripped a breaker and stopped working on the weekend. They sure do not last like a big iron like my Rowenta...

My thinking was to have the eggplant against the coping strip to frame the centre, and that is how I constructed the four sides, putting HSTs in the four corners. I had to cut those yellow triangles from a strip, with the diagonal on the straight of grain, meaning their bias edges would be in those four corners, not good, but that was all I had left of the yellow. There are eight triangles within this round from a second yellow and a second eggplant! I wasn't worried about the bias edges though because it wasn't the final edges of the quilt.

The magic happened when after pinning on the left and right sides and assembling the top and bottom rows, I laid out the entire round on the design wall, eggplant QSTs against the coping strip as planned, and stepped back to see how it all looked. (I never did take a photo at that moment, sorry.)

Wait a second.

What if the yellow was against the coping strip? Then the yellow background of the coping strip would flow into the yellow QSTs, and the eggplant QSTs would frame this round.

I unpinned the sides, flipped them along with the top and bottom rows, stepped back once more, and ooh, I liked it. Somehow it made the squares on point look better too. Once I set the eggplant HSTs in place on that bottom row...yup. 

You can see the eggplant HSTs I cut and laid across the yellow ones (just to be sure I liked it this way) and the top row that has the original blue/yellow HSTs still in place.

But crap, that meant I had to make four more HSTs, these in blue and eggplant as opposed to those you see in the top row, already sewn on, un-attach those blue/yellow HSTs, and re-attach the new ones. I've saved the four blue/yellow HSTs because I may use them somewhere in a future round and if not, they'll go on the back, possibly as the label.

So there you have it. Round 1 done! I met both PQ and SAHRR deadlines this week. Yay me. Now I have another deadline looming: a quilt that is coming out in the May issue of Make Modern so I need to finish the instructions and submit them. That's my plan this coming week, with possibly working on Meadow Mist Design Cheryl's Sea Star, a WIP from forever ago.