WHAT??!! There are so many things that I have never heard of or even dreamed existed! Thank you. I am going to look into all that.
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@AudiobookLover I’m in Oregon right now visiting and it was fun going to Mill End Store withher. I miss that place and the emense selection.
I’ll be home in Connecticut by weeks end and we will video quilt going forward. Fun times.
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Finally, here’s my Q1 list!
- finish my Christmas quilt for Mr. Imma (ran out of black fabric)
- make the Halloween tablerunner I didn’t get around to last year
- Finish the 5 UFO’s I found hiding in my room…
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I love script fabric. It look very cool.
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Since I seem to be the first person to do the Barrister’s Block, and since we have some new quilters, I thought I’d share some tips:
Note: for these tips, I’m going to refer to the color sections of the block as ‘paws’ and ‘claws’. That’s just what I thought they looked like.
TIP #1. Don’t bother bisecting the squares. The directions tell you to cut squares, then bisect them to get two triangles. This is dumb, because then you would be sewing along a bias edge, which is likely to warp out of shape, giving you a wonky block. Instead match up your prints with your background squares, then draw a diagonal line on the back of your lighter pieces. Sew 1/4" away from the line on each side, then cut them apart. This is called the Two At a Time Method.
This works for both your big ‘paws’ and your small ‘claws’ HST’s. It also works even if you’re going for an ultra-scrappy look with every single ‘claw’ a different color, because you still would have needed to cut all 24 squares to start with, then after bisecting you would have a random triangle of each color leftover. This way you get two HST’s, that are neatly sewn each time, even if you chose to only use one of each color set.
I’m breaking Tip 2 down into an A and B, depending on the size of the block you’re making…
TIP #2 A - 12" BLOCK. Cut your small ‘claw’ squares at 2 1/2", rather than 2 3/8". First, 2 3/8" is a stupid, fiddly size to cut, and in doing so you’ll end up with leftover strips that are 2 3/8", which aren’t good for much. HOWEVER 2 1/2" strips are highly useful in quilting. You can use them as Jelly Roll strips or cut them further down into Mini Charm Squares.
Cutting them just 1/8" bigger means that when you are done, you will have room to trim down your HST’s to the right size. (The pattern doesn’t say, but for the 12" block, you’ll trim them down to 2".) If you do the 2 3/8", you will have no margin for error, and if you’ve not sewn them at exactly 1/4" seam, your HST’s might be too small. I know people don’t love trimming down pieces. (Especially in this case 28 HSTs for a single block!) However, if you do, your whole block will come together more easily when you do the rest of the assembly, and you’re far more likely to end up with the right finished size block.
TIP #2 B - 10" BLOCK Just as above, I would advise you to cut your small ‘claw’ squares at 2 1/2", rather than 2 1/8". Again, 2 1/8" is a fiddly size to cut, and you’ll end up with leftover strips that aren’t good for much. 2 1/2" strips are highly useful in quilting. You can use them as Jelly Roll strips or cut them further down into Mini Charm Squares. Don’t think of it as ‘wasting’ 1/4" strip of fabric. Look at as preemptively creating scraps you are more likely to use than you would have otherwise.
Cutting them bigger, also means that when you are done, you will have room to trim down your HST’s to the right size. (The pattern doesn’t say it, but for the 10" block, you’ll trim them down to 1 3/4".) If you do the 2 1/8", you will have no margin for error, and if you’ve not sewn them at exactly 1/4" seam, your HST’s might be too small. I know people don’t love trimming down pieces. (Especially in this case 28 HSTs for a single block!) However, if you do, your whole block will come together more easily when you do the rest of the assembly, and you’re far more likely to end up with the right finished size block.
TIP #3. For the ‘Paws’ larger HSTs, you can cut them the same size the pattern says, and since they are larger, you shouldn’t have as much trouble with getting them the right finished size. If your blocks are somehow too small, it would only be by about 1/16" - 1/32" over a 5" piece, not enough to mess up your whole block. (I still advise doing the Two at a Time Method)
HOWEVER: The same rule of scraps applies, as did above. When cutting a strip, to get my larger purple and orange blocks, I started by cutting a 5 1/2" strip, and then a 5 1/2" block. That way I had room to trim them down perfect. (I did the 12". If doing the 10" start with a 5" strip.) This also meant that I could trim the rest of the strip down to 5", and put it with my scrap 5" strips, or further into 5" squares, aka Charm Squares. Again, this size is highly useful in quilting, and also could be further cut down into two 2.5" strips or squares if needed in future.
TIP #4. This isn’t necessary, but if you have a choice of background fabrics, choose something that isn’t uni-directional. Because you’re going to slice and dice it, and it will get spun around so much, if you pick something that has one ‘right way up’, then you’re going to be annoyed when so many parts of it are sideways and upside down. The black script fabric I used had script written in every direction, so when sewn, it still feels like the same background. For example a good prints would be a small polkadot. A poor choice would be a stripe, or a print of cats all sitting the same way.
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Awesome block…and the tips sure will save frustration! I always hated those weird fiddly cuts…No room for any error! ha
I have bookmarked your comment so I can use them for this block!
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This is wild! Love it! And thank you for the tips. I had read the directions and already said, no that’s stupid.
I haven’t settled on colors for this one yet, thanks for going first!
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@marionberries, Did I ever tell you I figured out why that one quilt block came out 12" instead of 12.5"? Somewhere around April or May of last year, I measured a finished BOM, and noticed it came to just 12", not 12.5", and complained about that here. Then you made it and yours was right. It was driving me nuts for the longest time.
I have a 1/4" piecing foot for my machine, but I never use it, because it’s so narrow, that the fabric doesn’t feed through the feed dog teeth very well with it. But it’s a computerized machine, and I can change my needle position 6 steps in either direction. Long ago measured and figured out that by using my regular foot, and setting it 3.5 to the right, I get a perfect 1/4" seam. So I always, always set it that way when quilting. I was totally doing that when I made the ‘wrong’ block.
And I know I cut everything precisely. If I didn’t, my blocks and quilts over years and years would have been coming out wrong, and they always come out just right.
So what the heck was wrong???
It was the damn hand dyed fabrics from Darn Good Yarn. 
They weren’t pre-washed, dried, and sized, the way good quality quilting fabrics are. So each time I cut a piece perfectly, then stitched it just right, and finally took it to the iron to press, I was SHRINKING it with the iron! So if a block had 3x3 or 4x4 components, each little component was shrunk just a bit, and then the whole block came out wrong. ALL of my blocks in that muted rainbow solids quilt are wrong by at least 1/4" and some up to 5/8"! While it looks okay in the picture, that whole damn quilt top is wonky.
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I have linked your post to the BOM, thank you for sharing such helpful tips!
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That is really good. She is so clear. Thanks
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Ive had pieces shrink when ironed, especially when I spritz them or steam them. Your mystery is solved, but still frustrating!
My Pfaff standard foot is a centimeter not a 1/4" foot and I have to do the same, move the needle to the right. Took me a while to figure that one out. Even the 1/4" foot with a guide doesn’t do a scant and they don’t make the hole in it big enough to move the needle much. I use magnetic guides when possible.
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You have such a good eye for color, as is evident through this entire quilt! The orange sashing looks like it goes really well with all the other oranges you used throughout the blocks and that purple is so vibrant and adds such fun little pops of color to each of the corners.
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You really pulled all of the designs and colors together with the sashing and purple squares! The quilt is so vibrant and fun…well done!
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Projects we post here, can we post them in other -alongs too? (Thinking especially about the HP-along) Have finished some projects that I want to post in both Quiltalong and HP-along, so just want to make sure its ok, or I have to choose where to post each projects. 
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This is gorgeous!!! I love it so much, the orange stripey sashing is genius
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Thank you guys!
I was certain I had enough fabric to do a wide border outside the sashing. Preferably black, but possibly grey. Turns out that after making all the blocks, I don’t have enough of any of them. But, I do have so many Halloween scraps, and I really want to stash-bust. I really don’t want to buy anything else. And even if I did buy, Joann’s seems to be out of black Halloween fabrics right now. I do have enough solid black to do a border, but everything in the quilt is a print, so introducing a solid seems odd. So…
I cut up all the black scraps that I had left into 2.5” strips, and I’m going to try making a scrappy border. It could go great, it could go terribly.
(I do have 2 yards of the print of the witch silhouettes which is used as the center of a block, but I’m saving that for the back, along with my unused blocks. And the binding is going to be more of the orange stripes.)
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