Take Ten: February

Another month, another Take Ten block! We had a very busy January, so my sewing time was limited but I still managed to finish my January quilt and I’m ready to get to my February block- the Fellowship block!

I do put thought into what I’m calling each block this year, and Fellowship comes from the eye-shaped focal piece in each block. My inner nerd thought “it’s like the Eye of Sauron” except of course, it’s a quilt block and therefore cannot be threatening in any way. Therefore… Fellowship, in reference to the group of heroes in Lord of the Rings. My brain works in mysterious ways (ha!). You can all make fun of me another time, since now we are going to focus on how to make the block. 😉

The block finishes smaller than the previous month, mostly because less background fabric makes its way into this design. The Fellowship block will finish at 8″, and if you use all the squares in your 10″ square stack, your final quilt will be 48″ x 56″. This is a generous child’s size quilt- you can always add extra inches by adding sashing strips between the blocks and/or adding borders to get a larger finished size.

My February Take Ten quilt block features Fairy Dust by Ashley Collett for Riley Blake Designs, a darling collection that fits our family perfectly. It doesn’t hurt that we basically have the same last name, too!

I love the little gold bits!

Fellowship uses almost all of the 10″ square, and then background yardage. You’ll need 2 1/4 yards of your background of choice for the full quilt. As usual, the full PDF pattern download will be available at the end of the post!

It’s easiest to cut the square in half, then cut one of the halves into the 2.5″ squares and the other half trimmed to 4.5″ x 8.5″.

Once all the 10″ squares are cut, proceed to cutting the background fabric. I highly recommend the Stripology ruler for this part- I left mine in the United States and let me tell you, I really, really missed it! There are a lot of uniform pieces to cut for the full quilt.

The gathering of squares into stacks is a delightful moment in the quilt prep process.

Mark the back of all the 2.5″ background squares and half the 2.5″ main print squares to help with precision as you make the HSTs and flying geese.

You’ll use the stitch & flip (snowball) method for each step. Take advantage of chain piecing as you make the HSTs and flying geese blocks- I can run all the HSTs, and one side of the flying geese and one side of the main block (basically flying geese on both ends) in one long chain. Trim and press the flying geese blocks and center block corners, then run them through again using the chain piecing method. In the instructions, you are to press the seams open which is really helpful in sewing the blocks together in the end. It does take a little longer, but I prefer not to have bulkier seams than necessary- especially since these blocks don’t nest easily.

Once the units are complete, arrange the block and prepare to sew the units together.

Sew the HSTs to the flying geese units, and press.

Then sew these to the center unit. Press seams. That’s it- your Fellowship block is finished!

With chain piecing, the blocks come together so fast. Pressing the seams is the longest step, I am pretty sure. I have 22 blocks finished so far, and I am really excited to get this all finished!

Grab the full PDF by clicking the button:

Below, you can view the full layout mocked up in Hoist the Sails, but in this one I also added a narrow border.

As you can see from all the photos and mockups, I’ve arranged the blocks to alternate direction, but the arrangement is up to you. Below I have a mockup with all the “eyes” in the right orientation, so the main center units link together.

Make a whole quilt, or just one block just to practice your diagonal seam precision 😉 Check in on Instagram with your progress, using #taketenblockchallenge and tag @hellomellydesigns so I can see too.

One more mockup! This one uses a narrow sashing between blocks too, to make the quilt larger.

Have fun with Fellowship, this month’s Take Ten block!