Moda friendship block quilt along

Dies ist ein sehr langer Blogpost und meine deutschen Leserinnen möchten mir es bitte verzeihen, dass ich aus Gründen der Länge darauf verzichtet habe, den Post zweisprachig zu schreiben. Ich habe oben links auf meinem Blog einen Button “Übersetzen” installiert, der wird einen recht lustigen Text aus alledem machen. Aber die Bilder, und das ist die Hauptsache, sagen ja viel mehr als all die Worte.

The new collection COMMA is arriving in stores in the next few days and I’m overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response I got for this group! When I get a line saying “It's one of the few fabric lines where I can honestly say, that I like all the fabrics really much” I’m so glad the fabrics work wonderful for all kinds of projects.

Joanna from Shape Moth talked about the fabrics recently on her blog, while preparing a sample from Comma for a magazine. I copied her picture which shows the fabrics so nicely.

Now for our currently running Moda friendship quilt sampler here is a step by step tutorial of the “Zen CHIC” block (and I so love to have gotten this block to play with, the circle shape is so appealing to me). It is pretty easy to do and with all the downloadable detailed instructions even a beginner can dot it.

What you need is two strips of fabric for the ring, each of it at least 20” by 5” and a piece of fabric for the background,
at least about 9 1/2” by 14”.
In addition some wonder under fusible web and a clear monofil thread. That’s it, stashbuster, huh?

Ok, from each of your “ring” fabrics cut 4 pieces, each 5” square, from your background fabric cut two squares, one is 9 1/2”, the other 4 1/2”.
Prepare also your fusible web by cutting three squares,
one 9 1/2”, one 8” and one 5”. Great!


Next is easy peasy: You just sew together each two different squares from your “ring” fabric to form a rectangle.
Of course you can speed up this process by chain sewing.
Press seams to the darker fabric and join each two pieced pairs to a kind of checkerboard square.
Next prepare your fusible web: on each of your pieces draw a centered cross and use it as a guideline for your compass. For the largest square draw a circle of 9”, for the middle one of
7 1/2” and for the smallest (which needs no cross guidelines) one of 4 1/2”. (How to work with this appliqué technique is explained in detail in the attached block instructions).
Iron the fusible web on the back of your fabric, the smallest circle on the little square of background fabric, the both other ones on the pieced checkerboards. Make sure your cross guidelines meet exactly your seam lines.
Now cut the circles out very exactly. To avoid too much bulk in the middle of this block, cut a hole in the larger two circles. The diameter of the largest circle’s hole is 7”, the one of the middle circle is 4”.
Take 9 1/2” background square, fold it in halves length and crosswise and press some creases as guidelines. Pull off the paper of your fusible web, lay the largest ring on the background square, seam line matching creases and fix it by pressing. Do the same for the middle ring. Mark your smallest circle with two creases by folding it exactly in halves. Make use of these guidelines and put it onto this kind of “wedding cake” ;-). Iron it.
With a clear monofil thread and the button hole or zigzag stitch of your sewing machine sew around all three layers (actually you could have left the smallest circle out and make the hole of the middle circle exactly 4 1/2” diameter – in case you use the same fabric for the center and the background of the block. You for sure can vary the center point and give it another face than the background).
Done! Piece of cake, wasn’t it?
Yeah, an easy to do block – and now? What can you make out of this?

Add a 3 1/2” wide border to the block, and you have a nice front for a 16” pillow form.

Make two more blocks, set all three together to get a table runner rectangle.

Or make three more blocks, make a setting of two rows and two columns and get a nice square tablecloth.

Or make an entire quilt from these blocks. So speaking of quilts I can tell that this block is all about color value! You can make lots of variations out of it (what? this is just a ring on a square, what are you speaking of?) Yes, I said lots of variations. Because…

What would you like to see as your focus? The center circle? Make it from a dark fabric, well saturated and it pops out
and gives you this quilt look. Something like a bull’s eye, the inner circles are the dominant elements in this design.
Or – you can inverse this values, make the background really dark, the center circles bright and light.

Your quilt design looks now like a wall with lots of windows in. It seems you can look through and find a world behind.
Although using the same block and the same setting, this quilt looks totally different from the one above. The first one: bold – the second one: mysterious. And have you noticed, that in both designs the fabrics of the ring are from a very similar value, so the ring itself looks quite calm.

But the ring is also an element to play with. It has this checkerboard structure in it. Lets accentuate this checks and make back- and foreground calm.
The depth disappears and instead we get something very dynamic, it looks like wires which are going round and round. And what if we turn the blocks, alternating?

Notice how we’ve got two overlaying designs: the circles and also squares , looking like tiles.
Now you see, you can play with this block and find endless variations.

Would you like to see a quilt design not only in black and white, but rather in a fabric suggestion? Voilà. The new line Comma, in stores now, makes a stunning quilt from this block.
If you use once in a while the background fabric also for ring pieces, the shapes seem to open and disappear.

Go with a reduced color palette and make a graphic quilt, perhaps for a young boy.
Wouldn’t you love it?
Or make a huge block, one which fills an entire bed quilt, like I did with this pattern:   
Or  - and that is this blog post actually all about – make a single block for a sampler quilt. Because this is MODA’s friendship sampler blog hop.

Besides this block you will find each day three new different blocks from each Moda designer, all explained in detail. All with different fabric styles, suggestions -  you name it. Fabulous! Here is the nearly best: In the end Moda will give you a quilt setting containing all the blogs of this blog hop. Choose your favorite line and make a cool sampler quilt, make a Block Of The Month project out of it, maybe for your quilt group.

And show us pictures!!! Please, yes please! Post them at the flickr group here.

Follow the block hop and gather all the blocks. Click here for more information and the listing of participating Designers.

Now – after the nearly best – the very best: You will have the chance to win! Yeah! We have a brand-new fabric bundle from the very  brand-new fabric collection Comma for you. BTW: Each designer has something for you, so hop around! Today the amazing Bonnie from Cotton Way and my lovely friend Anne Sutton from Bunnie Hill show you their newest line, a wonderful block and start their giveaways. Don’t miss to stop by at their blogs!

Win this Fat Eighths Bundle containing all 40 different fabrics

What do you have to do?

1. FOLLOW the Zen Chic blog, the one you are currently looking at ;-) and get all the news about project and fabric ideas. 

2. Leave a COMMENT on the blog as to why or for which project you would like to work with the Comma fabrics!

Don’t miss to leave your email address so I can inform you in case you are the lucky winner.