August do.good stitches

I'm in charge of picking the block for our August do.good stitches quilting bee. Sewing and quilting with my nurture circle ladies is one of the highlights of my month. 

This month we're tackling some simple paper piecing kaleidoscope blocks. The tutorial for this month is found here: 

http://www.quilterscache.com/K/KaleidoscopeBlock.html

For the blocks, I'm asking the circle to use low volume prints for the outer corners and ROYGBIV solids for the spokes (see the examples below). In the instructions, it says to join four of the finished blocks into a 12" block. You can skip that step and just make 8 different blocks and send them to me. Try to use a variety of solids and not make 8 red blocks. 

A couple tips that helped me when making these blocks. 

I chain pieced my blocks and just did the same step 8 times. It made trimming, sewing, pressing, etc. go so much faster. 

I noticed when trimming my blocks before the final piecing step (sewing the halves together) that the outer line is just a bit wider than 1/4". Make sure the seam allowance is truly 1/4" before seeing the two halves together. 

When piecing the halves together, make sure you leave a 1/4" "notch" at the top and bottom of each block. This ensures that the center points line up. 

Leave the papers in. I'll take them out once I piece the blocks together. 

The blocks do take some time to put together, but the paper piecing is pretty easy. Have fun! 

Briawna