Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Snow flurries in April?



Thinking ahead for a class for Christmas I made a Snowflurries quilt from a pattern by Deb Tucker. 
I had never made any kind of LeMoyne star block before, so I did not know what to expect with all those tiny points.  But Deb has a technique that allows you to strip piece the units in the block and then trim them with her Rapid Fire LeMoyne Star ruler.

I chose fabrics that were not Christmas prints, but which were Christmas colors.

I started by piecing pairs of strips, and laying them right sides together

Next, I cut units on the diagonal.

Then I trimmed off one corner triangle,

and sewed that same triangle back to the original unit, but in a different location.  This is where it goes:
And this is what the units looked like afterwards.  Notice that each pair is a mirror image, and look at those white star points!  Perfect.

Then the real magic began.  I took the Rapid Fire ruler, lined it up at the inner tip of the star, and trimmed the outer edge to the perfect size:

When you sew the units together, you have one quarter of the LeMoyne star completed:

The final trim comes after you sew all four quarters together and you end up with a really perfect block:

After making the first block to understand the sequence, I did all the rest with chain piecing.  I like how Deb made some stars with half green and half red backgrounds and came up with this neat overall design.

I can imagine this pattern done is shades of blue and white to really feel like snowflurries.
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3 comments:

  1. Cool technique for a really cute quilt. I may have to try this.

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  2. Great technique. And, I love cmas quilts made from non-cmas fabrics. It works for me better than some of the cutesey cmas fabrics I've seen. Lane

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  3. This is so pretty!! How big is it?? I like how the pattern extends into the border. Cool technique!

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