WIP Wednesday - Sampler Craziness

Every week Lee over at Freshly Pieced does a Work in Progress Wednesday, or WIP Wednesday.  She has a link section at the bottom where people like me can submit our projects for that week.  I just LOVE this idea and I have been an active participant for a few months now.  For just about as many months as I have been participating I've wanted to catch up with the Skill Builder Sampler my friend Leila has been doing and this week I made TONS of progress.  I did blocks #3 to #9 and bonus block #1.  I've learned a few things along the way and basically had a lot of fun.  I've worked on nothing else this week so this post is all about the Sampler.

Block #3 Churn Dash - I love the way this one turned out.  The greens look so great!  I would love to see a whole quilt done in this block with a variety of colors or maybe even a bunch of the same.  It would be fun to see the additional patterns this would make.

While working on block #4 I learned about trimming down to create a perfect HST.  It seems unbelievable to me that I have quilted for 15 years and never have done this.  I guess I thought it was cheating and that I should be able to just make them perfectly in the first place (yeah, right!).  It took a while but I can't argue with the perfect results.

Here are all my perfect HSTs and the trimmings.  I set aside one piece to show the tiny shavings I'm removing but over a whole block and a whole quilt it really does make the difference.

Block #4 Pinwheels - See how perfectly it all came together thanks to the trimming?  I'm so excited I learned something so useful!  This block is just beautiful!  I've never made a pinwheel before so it was fun and super easy.

Block #5 Arizona - I think this is the best block as far as color combination so far.  I love how it turned out!  I also like how crisp it looks.  So many of these would be fabulous with their own quilt and this is one of them!

Block #6 Bow Tie - I love the red and white on this one.  The bow tie was SO FAST!

Block #7 Virginia Star - We tried flying geese for the first time in the sampler with this block.  I was a little nervous but the traditional method worked well for me and it all lined up great.  I like showing off the light gray print in the middle as it was one of my favorite pulls for this quilt.

Block #8 Breaking Out - FAIL!  Well, my husband thinks I'm crazy but I think I totally failed at this block.  Especially the dark purple geese don't line up and there are huge chunks of white showing.  We used the "magic method" and I tried really hard but came up lacking.  Some of them turned out well but some of them were about 1/4" off.  Needless to say I need practice with the magic method and in the mean time I'll be sticking to traditional.

Block #9 Double Star - I went back to the traditional method of piecing the geese for this block and it turned out beautifully!  I went with an alternate layout of this block and just love how it turned out!  The gray and purple are so fun together!  I don't know what it is about my camera that makes dark purple skew blue but some time I'll figure it out.

To help with cutting directions and to keep track of the color combinations I have used without having to take out all the blocks every time.  I love seeing them at a glance like this.

Bonus #1 Zigzag - As part of the series Leila takes the time to teach basic skills like quilt math.  For this block she discussed how quilt math works and then set us to work designing our own block for the bonus.  This is what I came up with.  It's a zigzag using 2.5" strips.  I cut them 2.5" by 4.5" and just sewed them all together following my drawing.  I love the crisp clean lines.

WIP Wednesday Stats:

No progress:
• Cape Ann Quilt
• A Walk in the Woods Quilt

This week's stats:
Completed projects - 0
New projects - 0
Currently in progress - 5