County Fair Quilt Block: Grandma's Scrap Quilt

It's almost time for my local county fair again. As it approaches, I start to think about what I'm going to exhibit this year.

And the one project I do each year specifically and only for the fair is the quilt block for their raffle quilt. Each year they pick a theme and sell kits of fabric. The block is due the next year.

Last year the theme was "Grandma's Scrap Quilt". The kits have a square of background fabric and four smaller pieces of print fabric. All of the prints were 1930s repro designs.

None of the kits were the same. They had a lot of different prints in the same style and put a selection of four in each kit. While I was working the Home Arts table first night of the fair, I looked at all of them and picked the combo that I liked best.

I didn't want two prints of the same colour family and wanted to have some contrast (light and dark). Most of the prints registered as "medium" but I tried to find the best combo. You can see what I ended up with on the left.

Although I hadn't started any work on the block, I had been thinking about it. The first thing I think of when I hear Grandma's Scrap Quilt is a Grandma's Flower Garden -- flowers made of a ring of hexagons. I thought about doing one single flower or doing a mini version with more flowers on the square. (I've been influenced the 1/4" hexies and 1/2" Lucy Boston pieces I've seen online.)

But I couldn't seem to get fired up about it. I had a hard time picturing how I was going to use four colours in a flower with five petals. When I looked at the project with more purpose recently (being closer to the deadline), I thought of an eight pointed star. Turns out I had one already drafted in Word. I added the squares around the outside and once it was printed and cut, I got this:

The paper pieces should be a clue that I was going to do this with English paper piecing, and not traditional piecing. I decided where the colours should go, glued the fabric to the paper pieces

and got to stitching.

In a couple days, I had the center shape sewn together.

I was going to applique the shape onto the background fabric. But which way to orient it? Like above or below?

I went with option one. To center it on the background, I created creases at the half way mark in both directions.

And then lined up the points with the crease lines:

I pinned it in a couple places to hold it but put in pins from the back to hold it while I stitched. That way my thread wouldn't catch on the safety pins.

I stitchey-stitched all the way around with the ladder stitch.

Now you could call it done here:

with the background fabric behind the whole piece but it does make it thicker. And in this case, I had to pull out those papers still! So I cut out the background about 1/2" from the stitching.

Then I pulled out the papers. To remove them, I run something under the edge of the fabric to loosen the glue and then insert it into the hole to pop them out.

Here we go--all done:

At this point I soaked it in a bowl of sudsy water to wash out the glue. I swished it a bit, but didn't agitate too much. Then I had a job of pressing all the seams in place again. After trimming the background to a 1/4" seam (and cutting all the fraying threads), I had this:

The centre of an eight pointed star is the trouble spot. Two of the worst things that can happen is that the points don't meet there and that it is a big thick pile of seam allowances. To avoid a big bump of fabric, you spin the seams in the centre. My block doesn't look super crisp because the edges frayed from the glue and washing, but it is relatively flat. (As flat as it could be.)

I starched the block from the front and the back and it is looking super crisp.

The last thing I did was cut the background to size, centering the applique and remembering to cut at 12.5" (not 12" like last year). All in all, a relatively smooth process this year.

I think this is a super pretty block that falls exactly in the theme. I used only the fabrics they provided and didn't play tricks by using the backs of fabrics. If this one doesn't win, I will never think about winning again. I will continue to make blocks because it's fun, but will stop wondering if it will place.