12 Days of Christmas in July Blog Hop and Quiltalong, Day 11!

Hi, all!

Day 11 of the 12 Days of Christmas in July Blog Hop has rolled around and I'm loaded chock full of wonderful new ideas!  So much great inspiration has been shared, so be sure to check out any posts you may have missed.  Today Joanne of Everyone Deserves a Quilt will be coming back to expand on her earlier table runner post, showing you how to turn the same blocks into a quilt.  And we'll be assembling the second set of blocks for Peppermint Twist.  Looks like it's quilt day!

Good ideas abound whenever we think of Christmas, and tomorrow I'll be giving you a chance to share some of your own.  We'll have a linky party where you can also link up a Christmas post if you want.  It can be a link to an old post if you want - no worries there!  Because after all, the more the merrier!!

And here's the schedule for the rest of the hop...

Wednesday, July 14th

Joy of Days Filled With Joy

Thursday, July 15th

Moira of The Quilted Snail

Friday, July 16th

Jamie of L'Fair Quilts

Saturday, July 17th

Bonnie of In Stitches With Bonnie

Sunday, July 18th

Joanne of Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Monday, July 19th

Kate of Katie Mae Quilts

Shasta of High Road Quilter

Tuesday, July 20th

Vicki of Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Wednesday, July 21st

Leanne of The Devoted Quilter

Thursday, July 22nd

Kathy of Kathy's Kwilts and More

Sandra of MMM Quilts

Friday, July 23rd

Carole of From My Carolina Home

Saturday, July 24th

Joanne of Everyone Deserves a Quilt (Part 2)

Sunday, July 25th

Karrin of Karrin's Crazy World

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All right, folks, let's get this block assembled!  Grab that last set of fabric pieces, labeled 2:A, and separate the white and red squares.  

Lay out your block as shown above, with the white A pieces in the upper left and lower right corners, and the red A pieces in the upper right and lower left corners.  Be sure that the dark green star point bases are against the center square unit (white triangles on the outer edge).

Assemble your block!  I use a technique similar to Bonnie Hunter's quilt webbing technique to put my blocks together - as you can see, my rows are sewn together but connected to the row below by a bit of thread.  This is achieved by laying out the block and sewing the top left piece to the top center piece, then WITHOUT cutting the thread, sew the middle left piece to the middle center piece, then without cutting the thread, sew the bottom left piece to the bottom center piece.  Now go back and repeat the process, sewing the top right piece to the other side of the top center piece, the middle right piece to the other side of the middle center piece, and the bottom right piece to the other side of the bottom center piece.  Now you have all the pieces for one block connected together!  You can either take this one block to the ironing board and press those seams open, or you can assemble all your blocks this way and press the seams all at one time.  It's completely up to you, although by this point in the process, I really want to see what it looks like on the design wall - so I usually press and finish a block and put up as much as I can on the wall so I can see the quilt grow!

Once the seams are pressed you will sew the cross seams, matching seams where needed.  Clip the bits of thread that held the block webbed together and press the seams open.  Voila!  Your Block 2 is finished!

Lay all your blocks out together, starting on the top row with a Block 2 in the upper left corner.  The blocks are arranged 5x5.

Tomorrow we will assemble our blocks into a quilt top!  Are you excited yet?

Hugs!

Sarah