Clarissa Update

Agnes Gru

I cannot believe it is Friday!
I haven't written a blog post all week, which is most unusual for me. No blogging usually means not much quilting time, which means I feel quite miserable and depleted by Friday. 
But today is the first Friday Night Sew In of 2017 and I have quilting friends coming over, so very soon I will start to feel much better! You can click here to sign up, or you can just join in wherever you are and make some progress on your sewing projects. 

Block #6 Clarissa

I did finish the 6th block for "Clarissa was a Superstar" quilt. This is my leader ender project for Bonnie Hunter's challenge this year (you can read more about the challenge here). The Clarissa quilt is inspired by a quilt from the 1800s which you can read about here. 
I used the light triangles as the centre pinwheel for this block. I like it and think I'll do more block centres like this one has.
It's funny that whenever I post another Clarissa block that people think I am making HST (half square triangle) blocks. These are not HST blocks, they really are QST (quarter square triangles) which are more commonly called hourglass blocks. They are cut and sewn differently using the Companion Angle ruler, or you could use Bonnie Hunter's new ruler.
Here is how I cut the 1.5" strips to get the 144 quarter square triangles I need for each 12" block. I cut two or four strips together and place the pieces ready to sew by the machine. I have learned that I have to put two pieces through the machine with the dark fabric on top and oriented in this way or else the block just doesn't work out.

This is my machine set up, showing that I am piecing a block for the En Provence mystery quilt. And my Clarissa triangles are sitting on the right side of the machine bed waiting to be a leader/ender between sewing sections of the mystery. I love that it doesn't waste any thread! And I love that I am making progress on 2 quilts at once.
I can't show you all the Clarissa blocks together because En Provence pieces are on the design wall. I can't wait to see all the blocks together and find out if I like the addition of the dark red colour in this block.