Skill builder BOM update

If you’d like to join in or follow along, here’s the first lesson from the Pile o’ Fabric Skill Builder BOM.

One lesson down and only 23 more to go. 🙂  I really enjoyed making these two blocks.  I haven’t sandwiched and basted them yet, but I should get to that tonight.  That’s the easy part!

8408995718_2f76bb9a31_z

The first block is called Sound Wave. I love it.  I’m so glad I chose the Macaw color palette!  I always worry about how the colors and prints will mesh together but it really worked out just as I imagined it.

I’ve done plenty of improv piecing before, but Alyssa provided me with a new way of thinking about it so that was cool to try.  I followed her instructions for this block pretty much exactly so that I could understand her logic.  I have to admit, I don’t fully understand it, but everyone works in different ways and the block turned out perfectly so what does it matter?

8408995486_9bf140d5d9_z

The second block is called Magnum.  I’m not so in love with this one.  I like the block, but I’m not so happy with the fabrics I chose for it or the order of the fabrics.  I didn’t pay as close attention to the instructions before I started cutting and piecing this block and so my original plan got muddled.  Silly me!  In particular, I think dark red stripe throws everything off, so I may pick the block apart and replace just that strip.  I was trying to use different fabrics from the Soundwave block when I really should have just gone with my gut and used one of the fabrics that I WANTED to use. DUH.

If you’d like to see the other blocks that folks are working on but don’t really want to join in with the sewing, there’s a flickr group for that.

Bookmark the permalink.

2 Comments

  1. These turned out great, I would love to hear your opinion a bit further on the blocks and method 🙂 It will definitely help me in the future and help me build some block design skill haha

    • Hi Alyssa, thanks for checking in! Your process and my process differ in one significant way: when to do the trimming of the strips. When doing an improve block I would normally save all of the trimming for the end or at least until I had the first seams done, for example on the Sound Wave block, I would have sewn the long background strip to the 13″ colored piece and THEN trim the background strip. For the Magnum block, I would have sewn the first two colored strips together at the appropriate angle (pinned together) and then trimmed the seam allowance to a quarter inch. I think it adds an extra level of stability. But, that’s just my method. I understand why you did it for the sound wave block, but less so for Magnum.

Leave a Reply