Moda Blockheads 3- Blooming Love

 Hello and happy Wednesday! I hope you are all having a good time sewing with Moda Blockheads. I know for me, the sewing has been a really therapeutic time of my day with all that is going on. The hum of the machine, the focus on creating something, the calming energy of sewing and quilting...these have been a needed thing lately. Therefore I am especially happy to be providing a NEW BLOCK this week!

UPDATE: I apologize that we've had an issue with connecting with the server for the pattern. Its back up now! Click the link in the gray box to get it from Moda. OR I've uploaded a PDF directly to my site and that is the BLUE "DOWNLOAD FILE" directly below this paragraph. I'm sorry for any problems you've had with getting the pattern  (and keep reading for some color ideas):

bh3_11-robin-pickens-blooming-love.pdf
File Size:	729 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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BLOOMING LOVE BLOCK

Meet BLOOMING LOVE. This block can be done in so many ways. We just had Saint Patrick's Day and couldn't you see this as a four leaf clover? Or a simple pinwheel? This block was born from my Picket quilt and the 18" block I designed "Full Bloom."  I had a great time using the simple stitch and flip corners to make the picket fence or pointed ends to the sections. More info about stitch and flip is below. But for now, lets talk about how you can play with the block.

Half square triangles point to the center of the block with stitch and flip pointed ends extending from each one. A square is in each corner. These are some studies of how the block could look with different color play. For my block I was sewing I wanted to separate one section with a darker red to emphasize the heart within the pieces. I enjoy how it can look like both a flower and a heart, thus the name Blooming Love. Or what if you had two hearts, reflecting each other? In my mind, I originally thought of the pieces showing slight variations of color, either in scrappy mixes or light and dark hues. In the second row above, the 4 hearts meet at their points. Or, If you keep one side of the heart as a solid color and break the other side into two colors, and repeat and rotate that arrangement, it makes a pinwheel. The first two images on the third row show a gradation of colors that move around a wheel from light to dark. This could be really fun to try with some ombre fabrics. In fact, I'm updating this post to add some new pictures of one that I DID try with Ombre Confetti just today (Wednesday)! I made this one in the smaller, 6" size and used Thatched Burgundy for the background. On the last row you can see how it looks if you play with the corner blocks too or create some optical illusion with white center sides and dark corners.

Once you have decided what you are doing with your arrangement, its time to get started on those pieces...

If you haven't made stitch and flip blocks before, its pretty easy. A smaller square is added on a corner (right sides together) with a line drawn corner to corner, diagonally. Sew on that line. I sometimes just do a finger-press to crease the line into the fabric vs drawing it. After sewing, trim the corner off. I like to save those corners if they are big enough to use as half square triangles on other projects. If I'm saving them I will sew an additional seam 1/2" away from the first one (parallel the first seam), and then cut the corner off, leaving me with my little extra HSTs, already sewn. Since I'm making the 8" blocks for this project, the small stitch and flip corners are too little for me to make those extra blocks. I just throw the cut corners away or put them into my fabric cuttings that get donated for pet beds. 

After cutting the corner off, make sure you press the flipped corner open before adding the other corner, just as you would when making flying geese. I've forgotten and had to rip out the top part before. ​

For the half square triangles in the center part of this block (the D pieces on the instructions) I increase the measurement 1/8th of an inch over what the directions say so my blocks are a little bigger when I make them, then I trim up my blocks. I like to use Bloc-Loc rulers to trim my half square triangles.  I press the seam of my half square triangle to the dark side. Then the Bloc-Loc ruler ridge nestles up to the seam when you have the logo on the light side of the fabric. The ridge in the ruler helps it stay in place and aligned for you to trim the block. 

You also might need to trim up corners on the stitch and flip pieces. Any ruler works fine for this. After trimming all the pieces up you can join into rows, then join the rows and TA DA...your Blooming Love block is ready to share some cheer!

If you've been following me these weeks, you have seen I've been making my blocks in both all Thatched fabrics for a more modern, solid look, and in Thatched mixed with scrappier mixes of fabrics. I've used fabrics from Abby Rose on this one to bring in my pink tones. 

Here is the Picket quilt that was my original inspiration! It was lots of fun to design!

Thanks so much for the community and the energy of sewing along! I hope you have a great time with this block! Visit the other Moda designers to see their approach to this block:
Corey Yoder - https://corianderquilts.com/
Sherri McConnell - https://www.aquiltinglife.com/
Betsy Chutchian - http://betsysbestquiltsandmore.blogspot.com/
Jan Patek - http://janpatek.blogspot.com/
Brigitte Heitland - https://www.brigitteheitland.de/blog
Lisa Bongean - https://lisabongean.com/
Lissa Alexander - http://modalissa.com/
Laurie Simpson - http://minickandsimpson.blogspot.com/
Vanessa Goertzen - https://lellaboutique.blogspot.com/
Stacy Iest Hsu - https://www.stacyiesthsu.com/blog/
(Me) Robin Pickens - https://www.robinpickens.com/
Janet Clare - http://janetclare.co.uk/blog/
Jen Kingwell - www.jenkingwelldesigns.com/blog
Joanna Figueroa - https://blog.figtreeandcompany.com/

Thanks so much and happy sewing!
​Robin