Stars All Around | Summer Block of the Month | Part 1-4 | Lisa Bongean | Primitive Gatherings

Hey everyone, it's Lisa Bonjean from Primitive Gatherings and today I'm going to talk about our summer blocks of the week slash month programs that we have here going on right now. So hopefully you have received your kit. If not, I'm sure it's going to land shortly. But I first want to talk about Stars All Around. Stars All Around is two different quilts. One contemporary, that's this one right here behind me, and this is done using Vanessa Christian's ombre fabrics. So there's only 33 fabrics I believe, don't quote me on that specifically, but those are all the fabrics that you're going to use for this quilt. And then we have another version which I call traditional and that is more Civil War or other fabrics that aren't bright and as cheery but are still really good fabrics. So they can be bright but not, you know, this has a more modern vibe, this has a more traditional vibe. Now this one comes with 208 fabrics cut in all the rainbow colors that we're going to use. So this will be one star in the quilt. And guess what? There's some leftover fabric here, so stay tuned. I might have a little side project going on for these. You still will be able to do the little side project with the contemporary one as well. So when you get your shipment, I want you to take out your fabrics, take out your pattern, please read that pattern from start to finish, maybe two times, okay, just so it all sinks in what you're all going to do. Don't just start doing the first step, read the whole pattern so you can wrap your head around what's all going on. Now you're going to get three shipments for this project. You're going to get one through four, the first one, then five through eight, and then nine through twelve. So look for those. Now let's go through what we're going to start off first. You are going to, but I say, if you want, starch these fabrics. That is going to make this so much easier to do and you're going to thank yourself for it. This quilt is actually pretty simple to do. All it is is stitch and flip corners. So what that means is you have a little piece like this. So you have four of these for each star. So you have four of these corner units that you're going to do. Now I already stitched and flipped one. Now this other one here, all we're going to do is stitch from corner to corner. Kaylee's going to show you a photo of how I do that. I do not mark lines on all these squares. I just put this in my sewing machine and then I stitch. I have a line on my sewing machine from the needle all the way out and as this runs through the sewing machine, I follow this point right here with the line. So therefore that eliminates me marking on any of my fabrics because 208 times 4 or times 8, that's a lot of marking. So we don't really need to do that. So look for that little tip on how to do that and by all means, if you want to mark, go ahead. But I do not and that's how I, one of the ways I get things done a little faster. So in the contemporary version, we have a special chart for cutting. So that is going to look like this right here, this little chart here. So when you cut your fabric, see how it ombres from light to dark? You're going to cut this big square here and then the eight smaller squares all in the same row so the star has all the same value fabrics in it. You don't want to cut it the other way where these would be lighter. So you want to keep that all the same value. So there's a nice chart in there to show you how to do that. The first pattern is for blocks 1A and 1B. It will highlight each pattern which blocks you are making. You need to lay this quilt out as you're doing it. It's very simple piecing but it's a lot of laying out and making sure you have everything in the right order before you sew them together. And yes, you will make a mistake. I make mistakes too and sew the wrong or flip one but that's normal. Don't get all upset about it when it happens. It happens to all of us. So we have 1A and B. So this just happens to be, see how this is 1A and then 1B. Okay, so do you see how some of them don't have these corners? So you're going to pin that corner onto these so then when you move on to the next part, it's going to be there for you and you'll see that coming up. And then I have 2A and 2B. So I'm going to try to sew right along with you guys. So this is the first section. I have those all done. So then here, just a little, so those are my 1s. Okay, so now where my 3s come in, they start to change shapes. So let's find where this one is going to hook up. All right, I should have had this. All right, so 3B is going to go like this. So you see how this is going to match up? So this was parked here until I made the 3 blocks. So there's 4 3s, A, B, C, and D, and then a center. So I pinned these to this block until I made these and then I moved those over for that. So really simple, but you're going to have to lay it out. Now one of the other things I want to talk about is thread. So there's no perfect color thread for this because I don't like seeing white thread in my colored fabrics. But you can't have dark thread when you're sewing all this light together. So we are going to use light and I have used 20-21 Aurifil 50 weight. But what you're going to do is you're going to lower your stitch length a little shorter than what you normally do. So when these dark ones are sewn together here, you don't see any white thread in the seam. So that's my way of not being able to see that white thread. It's just to lower that a little bit. So I usually sew a little bit under two, so I probably moved it to maybe one and a half, maybe a little lower than that. But just test it to see what works best for you. So the first set is ones, twos, threes, and that. So here's one, and then the next set is twos, and then the next set is three, and then four is out here on the corner. So that's what the first packet includes. So do you see how I have four here and these are pinned? So when I make the next blocks that go onto here, these are already set for me to have handy when I'm making the blocks that connect to 4B and 4A. That's what that's about. All right, so here's that ombre cutting. Just make sure you cut this way, and you will have some gaps sometimes because you want to cut here for the light, here for the dark, and maybe some here in the middle. All right, let me make sure I put this back in the kit. Okay, now let me see if there's anything else I need to talk about. Thread. Okay, I think that's it. So I hope you enjoy getting started, and I will be back again to talk about blocks five through eight. All right, go stitch, everyone.