Sunday, November 12, 2017

100 Blocks Road Rally-Reindeer Games

Reindeer Games Block
by Heidi Pridemore


Under The Lights
Hello there and thank you for stopping by. I am so excited to share my Reindeer Games block, that is featured in the upcoming Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, Vol. 16 issue. You can find our happy reindeer on page 31. Christmas is my favorite holiday, so for my design, I thought I would design a Rudolph the red nose reindeer block to share with you.

Christmas is actually a quiet time for us here at The Whimsical Workshop. So we have more time to catch up with family and friends. Growing up in Rochester, NY, we always had a wonderful white christmas. Our family has always been small but happy and every year, my mom, would make my favorite recipe, lasagna for christmas dinner. To this day, this dish always reminds me of home.

For my reindeer block I decided to use Modern Melody Basics from Henry Glass Fabrics. I love that this collection works as a solid, but the tiny print, adds texture and movement to the design. Colors of the fabrics are so clean and clear. For the block design, I have always loved designing fusible applique because I can add a personality to each character I create.

Deck The Halls
Here are a few tips I would like to share with you when doing fusible appliqué. First make sure to use a lightweight fusible web. My favorite brand is Trans-web. Second, use a straight pin to score the paper backing on your pieces to create a "crack and peel" to make removing the paper easier when assembling. Third, make sure to use an open toe foot when stitching the finishing stitch on the edge of each shape. It is so much easier to see what you doing with an open toe foot.

The other quilts shown here are a few of my favorite holiday patterns I have designed over the years at The Whimsical Workshop. All patterns are available for sale on our website. You can check out all our fun patterns at www.thewhimsicalworkshop.com.

Christmas Spirits



Quiltmaker Magazine has sent me several early copies of this 100 Blocks issue to give away. Please leave a comment below with your email letting me know what is your favorite holiday for a chance to win a copy of the magazine. Good Luck and thank you for coming by!




Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Color Blast Free Pattern

          Blast of Color
             38” x 38”
Designed and made by Heidi Pridemore

This month Accuquilt introduced a new GO! Qube Companion set called Angles. They sent us a set to play with for this month’s free project. I have to say that the shapes that are included in the new Angles companion set are some of my favorite shapes to design with. So coming up with an idea for this month’s project was an easy task. The Color Blast pattern includes both die-cutting and traditional cutting instructions. The pattern is free and available from The Whimsical Workshop. You can download the free pattern at www.TheWhimsicalWorkshop.com along with our past free patterns.




First I had to find the right fabrics for the job. If you know me and our designs at The Whimsical Workshop, then you know the brighter the fabrics the better. I also love mixing my bright fabric with dark backgrounds to really make the colors pop. I had a fat quarter bundle by Lib Elliott and  Andover fabrics called Tattooed and I have holding on to them for a special little project. I started with 15 Fat Quarters from the collection and black solid fabric for my background. For this project only part of each Fat Quarter is used so another options would be to use up smaller pieces of fabric for each shape and make a scrappy quilt. Sky’s the limit on how scrappy this quilt can get with this method!



Since this project had to be made during our Studio’s busiest time, I decided to keep the project small, but it would be very easy to enlarge it by using the larger sets of Go! Qube and Companion dies.
When I started the design for Color Blast I knew wanted to combine the original dies that came in the GO! 8 inch Qube set with several of the dies from the new GO! 8 inch Companion Angles set. I used this as my starting point for my design. I also wanted to show you that you can make different finished size blocks by adding more units to the block. Instead of four units for an 8” finished block, I used nine units for a 12” finished block.
The first unit to make for the color blast block using the new Angles set will be the Kite Block. This unit is going to become the corner units for our blocks. The new angle die cuts the pieces so the corners are angled and they fit together without any “dog ears” of fabric that have to be trimmed up later. This makes lining up the two shapes very easy and creates a very accurate unit once sewn. I always turn to my GO! Electric cutter when I have a project with triangles because it is so much more accurate than hand cutting.
Note for the side triangle pieces in the Kite Unit, you will need one triangle that slants to the right and one triangle that slants to the left for the background pieces. They are mirror image of each other. When die cutting these pieces, cut half of the pieces with the fabric right side up and the other half of the pieces with the fabric right side down to create the mirror image triangles. If you are following the traditional cutting instructions we have included a template for each side.
Make four sets of kite units for the blocks and 1 set of kite units for the border corners as shown in the instructions.


 Next up is to make the side units. These are made by sewing together two rectangles, one of color and one of the background (in our case the black fabric). These rectangles are cut from the die in the original 8” Qube set. Make four sets of center units for the blocks.
Now we are ready to assemble the blocks.  Each block is made up of four Kite corners, four side units and one 4 ½ square also cut from the original GO! 8” Qube set.




My first thought was to make each block scrappy, but in the end I decided to match the fabrics for each frame. I took a picture of both layouts so you can decide which one you want to do.



 When sewing the units together into rows, press towards the center unit  (rectangle unit) in each of the three rows, this will help you line up the pieces when you sew the unit rows together to make the block.


For this quilt you will need to make four 12” finished blocks from the assorted fat quarters as directed on the pattern.


Next up, we need to make the Triangle-in-a-Square units for the sashing. The side units are the same as the ones used for the kit blocks and the triangle shape is another new die from the Angles set. You will need to make four sashing units total.


Sew one sashing strip from the instructions to the top of each sashing unit. Two of these will become the vertical sashing strips. Sew together the two remaining sashing strips and one 4 ½” square to make the horizontal sashing strip.

Now we are ready to sew the four blocks and sashing strips together for the quilt top. Once sewn together the sashing strip units will form a star at the center of the quilt top.


For the scrappy border, cut four 2 ½” squares from each of the fifteen different fat quarters. Lay out the one of each fifteen different color squares in a pleasing manner to make one scrappy border. Repeat the color layout for the remaining three scrappy borders.

Sew the squares together into one row and sew the pieced row to one background border,to complete one outer border. Repeat to make four of outer borders.


Now you are ready to sew the borders and corner blocks to the center unit to complete the quilt top.

In this month’s pattern, we included two options for the binding strips. There is enough fabric to cut the binding from the assorted fat quarters to make a scrappy binding as shown here. We also included instructions to cut a binding from the background fabric which is shown in the image at the top of this post. As always I would love to see your projects, please send them along your projects to us at info@thewhimsicalworkshop.com and we can add you to our bragging rights page on our website.

Make sure to visit my blog each month where I will share with you some tips and tricks on cutting and assembling of the project of the month along with posting the free pattern on our website The Whimsical Workshop You can also see our pattern and post at www.accuquilt.com
Until next time…..
Heidi