Georgia’s Tip 2: Learn to Draft a Block You can use the templates and measurements in this month’s PDF to complete the block, but as Georgia says, you’re not a real quilter until you can make a block from scratch. Learn her block drafting method in her video included in this blog post!

Quilt Alliance BOM Tips Each month, we share our best tips for making the Birthday Block of the Month as well. These tips come to you from our Birthday Block of the Month host, Quilt Alliance co-president Laura Hopper!

Play With Color Did you notice that I used a different color for my center octagon than appears in the PDF pattern? Instead of Color 3, the neutral color, I used Color 2. That’s because during a previous month of the BOM, I made a cutting error and ran out of Color 3 fabric. Oops! It happens to the best of us.  Luckily with this block, you have the opportunity to play with color. Use Color 3, or pull in your favorite color from the quilt. Or you could use the fabric you’ll use for the backing or binding! How about using a special fabric that you fussy cut, just like Georgia did in her version of the block shown below? There are so many options! Don’t let the color guide limit you — it’s your quilt so have fun!

Align Star Units Correctly! Speaking of oops, notice something wrong with the star unit above? Yep, I made a mistake. Did I mention that it happens to the best of us?  As Georgia said in her tips, the 45° angles of these triangles should be aligned. However, when I picked up my green fabric, I didn’t do that. I accidentally sewed the 45° angle to the center of the pink fabric, instead of to the 45° angle of the pink fabric. That doesn’t look like a 90° angle!   Thank goodness for seam rippers because if you make the same mistake I did, all you need to do is rip that seam out and sew the triangle on the other way. Easy breezy!

Manipulate Fabric for the Octagon Have you ever made a block from the outside in? I haven’t! This was a completely new technique for me. And I learned a few things while doing it.  One useful tip is that to avoid puckers, make sure that the fabric is completely flat. This is a bit hard to do at first! I found that I needed to manipulate the fabric to get the octagon to lay flat on the outer star ring. Here are some pictures that might help! It’s very hard to explain but trust me when I say it’s something that you will get once you get to this step.

Accept Mistakes… or Redo Them It’s possible that with all the fabric manipulation in the world, you may still get puckers in your block. It happened to me!  When I saw my pucker, I had a choice to make. I could either rip out the seam and redo it to try and avoid the pucker. Or I could accept that I was learning a new technique and the results were imperfect. If you’ve been following this BOM for all nine months, you’ve probably noticed that I consider myself a precision quilter. I love when points line up perfectly. Making a perfect block is a wonderful feeling…but so is learning a new technique. If there’s one lesson I can leave you with at the end of this BOM, it’s that the only thing you should compare your latest quilt to is the last quilt you made. I help beginner quilters learn new techniques every day, and it’s very easy for a new quilter to compare themselves to someone who has been quilting for decades. You know what happens next? The new quilter gets discouraged. They think their quilts will never look that good. And they give up. For me, quilting is about seeing my personal growth. The points on my early quilts don’t match well, but now I know so many of the tricks that I’ve shared with you along this journey! And that’s how I approached this block. I learned new techniques from Georgia, who has been quilting since before I was born, and this is the first time I ever did them. I left my puckers in as a reminder that I’m always growing. And so that in ten more years, once I’ve practiced her techniques even more, I can see how much I’ve grown. I hope you all share the same outlook on quilting, growth, and learning!

Quilt Documentation Tip Follow Georgia’s lead as one of the most important figures in recent quilting history and document what you do! As a television personality, lots of Georgia’s quilting has been documented on film. Making a video about your blocks or finished quilts is a great way to preserve your story! Learn more about how in the next blog post, focused on documenting your completed quilt.

Carole’s Tip 2: Press With a Dry Iron By now, you know that I (Laura) recommend a tailor’s clapper basically every month. I love tailor’s clappers! They work so wonderfully to keep seams flat. However, using a tailor’s clapper requires using steam and there’s a possibility that steam can distort fabric. If that happens, the illusion of this block may also be distorted. Instead of using steam and a tailor’s clapper this month, use a dry iron.

Quilt Alliance BOM Tips Each month, we share our best tips for making the Birthday Block of the Month as well. These tips come to you from our Birthday Block of the Month host, Quilt Alliance co-president Laura Hopper!  Here are some reasons I love this block: it only takes about a half an hour to make, the only cutting you’ll do is when you follow the initial cutting instructions, and it looks much harder than it is. That’s the beauty of Carole’s design — a beginner can make it, but it looks advanced.

Stay Organized The hardest part of this block is keeping all of the differently-sized pieces organized. The PDF pattern will be a big help, but it’s not the only thing you should do, I recommend using sticky notes or scraps of paper to label each cut piece of fabric to keep track of them. Also important — keep those sticky notes on the cut fabric pieces until they are sewn together, not just while they are in a pile waiting to be put together. 

Check the PDF diagrams often! I’m sure you check the PDFs often each month, but for this one, it’s extra important. It can be easy to accidentally piece fabric together in the wrong order. Or when you complete the four units, you may sew a unit upside down. Oops! Avoid having to use that trusty seam ripper and make sure you’re checking the PDF diagrams at every step.

Let Loose and Have Fun You don’t have to overthink with this block. You don’t have any complicated techniques to worry about. This is truly an excuse to sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself. Have a blast!

Corner unit

Bonnie’s Tip 2: Cut Accurately Be sure to use ruler lines when cutting instead of mat lines. Quilting rulers are more accurate, and those small ⅛” lines may seem unimportant, but this block uses lots of eighth inch measurements.

Quilt Alliance BOM Tips Each month, we share our best tips for making the Birthday Block of the Month as well. These tips come to you from our Birthday Block of the Month host, Quilt Alliance co-president Laura Hopper! 

Sew Slow! When making the Chevron Units, your seam needs to be incredibly close to your guideline. To achieve this without sewing directly on the line, slow down while you sew. I enjoy slow sewing — I keep my machine at half speed at all times. But even I slowed down even more when making the Chevron Units to try and focus on accuracy.

Nest Every Seam Possible We’ve covered nesting seams in several previous blog posts, so by now you must be a pro! People often ask me how my piecing is so precise. My best tip is to nest seams! Once I learned to do this, my piecing improved noticeably and I never went back. It is popular nowadays to press seams open. However, doing that does not allow seams to nest and reduces accuracy. Press to the side, ensure that your seams alternate in pressing directions before sewing together, and nest in place. You’ll love your results.

Don’t Get Tripped Up By The Corner Units Look at the picture above. When you get to this step in the PDF, you may think you’ve cut something wrong. I know I did! I double-checked the pattern several times! Typically, when piecing, the two pieces being sewn together are usually the same size. However, when making the Corner Unit, you’ll sew two wing triangles onto a half square triangle (one is shown above), and the wing triangle will be longer. That’s because those long wing triangles are helping to create a seam allowance that will allow you to finish the Corner Unit! Take a look below, left. Do you see where the two wing triangles come together in the center? That’s a quarter inch between the edge and the start of the half square triangle! It allows you to make sure the half square triangle point lines up exactly with the next triangle sewn to the Corner Unit. Check that out below, right.

Know Where To Aim We’ve talked about this tip before, too. It’s almost like this block is bringing together so many skills built in previous months!  To get the perfect point shown in the Corner Unit above or in other areas of this block, knowing where to aim your seam is crucial. In the image above, you can see where three seams come together. Before sewing the last long seam, there was an X intersection. I aimed for the center of the X to create the long seam shown in the image above, and the result was a perfect point!

Last month, we practiced accuracy with a no-waste method for making flying geese. We’ll be building on that skill this month as we create smaller flying geese units for this block with a meaningful story. Inspired by her personal journey of starting to quilt by flying solo, before joining a gaggle of quilters in a guild, our designer for this month is the skilled artist and designer Andrea Tsang Jackson of 3rd Story Workshop. Known both as a fine artist and a quilt pattern designer, Andrea pushes the boundaries of quilting through collaborative work, one-of-a-kind design, and larger-than-life public installations. Her work has a timeless quality combined with an effortless calmness. This month’s block is no different. Let’s dive into some tips and tricks to help you create this block as calmly and effortlessly as you can.

Meet Andrea Andrea Tsang Jackson of 3rd Story Workshop is a textile artist, quilt designer, author, and educator based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. After working in various design fields and settings ranging from architecture to museums, the quilting medium called to her as a way to explore place, belonging, and agency. Her background in architecture has allowed her to understand the design process from a variety of approaches; her training in life has taught her about the beauty in mess.   You can follow her on Instagram and find all of Andrea’s patterns on her website.   One of the Quilt Alliance’s signature projects is the Go Tell It video documentation project, which anyone can do. Watch the video below to see Andrea talk about her block, and keep reading this blog post to learn a tip for how to document your own quilts!

Andrea’s Top BOM Tips Each month, our Birthday Block of the Month Designers will share their top tips for making the block they designed. Here are three great tips for making this block straight from Andrea herself. Andrea’s Tip 1: Follow Her Easy Flying Geese Tutorial For some new and fun tips about making flying geese, don’t miss Andrea’s no-waste flying geese tutorial. It is such a valuable resource that we included a link in the PDF pattern as well as the blog post! Andrea’s Tip 2: Cut Down the Time It Takes To Cut When cutting the units apart, cut multiple at once using the quickest cutting technique from Andrea’s blog! This tip will cut down your cutting time, especially if you decide to make more flying geese or an entire flying geese quilt after this month’s block. Andrea’s Tip 3: Get the Perfect Trim On Your Geese If you’re making a lot of Flying Geese, a Bloc-Loc Ruler is a wonderful tool to have for trimming them perfectly. However, if you don’t have a Bloc-Loc ruler, keep reading for a step-by-step look at how to trim the geese units with a regular ruler.  

Quilt Alliance BOM Tips Each month, we share our best tips for making the Birthday Block of the Month as well. These tips come to you from our Birthday Block of the Month host, Quilt Alliance co-president Laura Hopper!  Like last month, my tips for this month are going to focus on making the flying geese units. Let’s dive in!

Sew with a Scant Quarter Inch In Andrea’s tutorial, she specifically mentions using a scant quarter inch. If you’re new to this style of sewing, it’s easy breezy. Instead of aiming for an exact quarter inch seam allowance, you’ll aim for that seam allowance to be just a few fibers smaller. Trust me when I say it sounds harder than it is!  Also, don’t forget our tip from last month — know where your intersections are located. In the image above, you can see how to sew a seam through a flying geese X to ensure that you get a perfect point. See how great the point is below!