Lyra Pattern Release!

And it’s on sale, 25% off!

I’ll admit I was a little disappointed that I did not get the pattern totally together for yesterday’s post in my annual QAL. However, in retrospect, I think this is better, so that it gets its own post, and it includes a third quilt!

My original thought for the cover shot was to get this quilt under a magnolia tree, which are at their peak right now. However, when we were tootling around the little town of Essex this past week, which is just 15 km from my little town of Kingsville, we spied the old train station. It is a beautiful old building and made for a great backdrop, we thought.

Lyra Quilt Along - Square in a Square Units

First of all, thank you to those who linked up—some gorgeous fabric pulls. I have heard that the kite shapes went together very well (yay) and so well, in fact, from one quilter, that she went ahead and finished the quilt top, figuring out the other steps on her own. I think she’s competing with Rose for the speediest sewist award, ha.

This week we are taking it easy and making five square-in-a-square units.

Lyra Quilt Along - Piecing the Kite-Shaped Star Points

One of my favourite things about hosting these Quilt Alongs is seeing everyone’s fabrics, so when I saw the fabrics Susan in Australia (Granny Smith Quilting) has pulled, I thought, for the second time, and am now acting upon it, that we need a link-up to show off our fabric choices and/or cutting. If you don’t have Instagram or a blog, just email me (click ‘View my complete profile in the sidebar) a photo, and I will happily post them for you!

I thought we’d tackle the more intimidating shape first. I’m sure you’ve found that cutting the kite shapes is a bit of a pain in that they don’t nicely line up along the fabric length. I did update the cutting post with a photo of that step. This results in some weird leftover triangles which is annoying, I know. It’s worth it though for the cool effects they add to your block.

Kite Shapes in Blocks

Geometry is just so cool, but it can make your brain hurt sometimes too! Quilting is so good for our brains isn't it? We do geometry, measurements, and all sorts of calculations. For the Lyra quilt, four kite blocks are in the corners, creating another starburst. I used these same shapes in my very first QAL, Freefall, which was ten years ago. As I said, I love that connection from the first to this current one. Here is the ‘bad boy’ in question:

I’ve made a paper-piecing template for it, which is how we did this block in Freefall. You can get the link to download it here. It’s in Dropbox as well, and again, you do not need a dropbox account to access the file. You'll find a paper-piecing template for the square-in-a-square block in the same PDF.

Lyra Quilt Along - Cutting

This week we are cutting into our fabrics, and I can’t wait to see what beauties you are working with. Just wait until you see Rose's (somethingrosemade) pull—be still my heart! Please don’t be intimidated by the spiky triangles or kite shapes; the way the templates’ seams are angled at the pointy ends makes for perfect alignment. Truly. And Rose gave us all another simplification if square-in-a-square blocks are your nemesis, so be sure to read to the end.

Lisa (Lisa in Port Hope) had mentioned to me last week that a rainbow colour scheme would be an idea, and well, great minds think alike, because that’s where Rose is headed!

What I’ve Been Up To Lately

I’ve been mainly focusing on the quilt along, but I have been doing a little work on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, the second version of Circadian Rhythm, and putting together a fabric pull for another yoga student who has requested a Positive Flow bag! Here’s a quick look through these projects. I finished up enough snowball blocks in March’s colour which was red.

These are not the same block as January and February, which were dark blue and dark green nine-patches. What am I doing?

Lyra

This quilt is made with a few chunks of Hazel by Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew that I picked up over a sale or maybe two several years ago. It has been patiently waiting for the right quilt, which is this year's Quilt Along quilt. All but two of the seven pieces went into this quilt.

There certainly is lots of movement in this design, and I'm so pleased with how it turned out. It's a block I sketched when I was in the 30 Quilt Designs in 30 Days Challenge in 2017. I drew up four designs using it.