If you've made it this far, you have sewn all your 12 flower blocks and the sun compass and are wondering whats next.. Here is where we are going to work with what you have, and not with what you should have according to this pattern. We are going off road! And let me explain why.. First of all, there's colour and fabric choice.. if you lay out your blocks exactly as the pattern above, it may not be the best layout your quilt could have. For instance when I laid my blocks out exactly as the quilt pattern, I ended up with 4 blocks of red flowers in a row. There was a real clump of red in one section and it looked aweful. So I've moved my 4 red blocks, placing one in each corner. I then took my 3 blue blocks and evenly spread them around, and so on.  It might take you a while to decide where your blocks are going. Take some photos with your phone along the way so you can decide on your final layout. Looking through you phone makes it easier for you to spot the "clumps" of colour or tone. Lets talk about how this medallion quilt is going to come together.  First of all we have our centre block - our sun compass. It's going to have a thin floral frame.  This is surrounded by a floral block border - these are the 12 floral blocks that you made. First we will attach two side border sections, made from 4 of our floral blocks. Next we will attach the top and bottom border sections made from our remaining 8 floral blocks. The pieced border is a border that features the scrappy floral prints we have used to frame our flower blocks. The last border is a plain border which is cut 3 1/4" wide Last is the binding - cut at 2 1/2" wide To frame the sun compass, cut your 4 frames 1 3/8" x 20 1/2" ( or whatever your compass square measures - mine was 20" so believe me there is wiggle room)  Cut 4 corner stones in the background fabric 1 3/8" Attach two squares to either end of two of your frames. Sew the first two plain frames to the sides of your compass centre Now add the frames with the cornerstones attached to the top and bottom of the sun compass Its now time to attach the side floral blocks to the framed sun compass. Make sure you pin the seam intersections so that your frames on your sun compass line up with the frames on your floral blocks.  The next step is to attach the top and bottom floral block rows, again making sure the seams line up by pinning them first.  The last bit of piecing from this quilt will be the pieced border. We are going to strip piece it, unless you are working with scraps and can't cut strips in any great length to strip piece.  If you are not familiar with strip piecing, check out my blog post from last year, in particular the first set of photos where I explain cutting and sewing the strips and then crosscutting them.  Your strips will be cut 2 1/8" wide. Sew one background fabric strip to a floral strip. Press well. Then crosscut this strip set to 3 1/4".  Join the sections of 3 1/4" together, topping and tailing them so that the fabric prints create a checkerboard pattern.  Each border has 16 units making up the checkerboard. You will need 64 units to make enough for the quilt.  Make and sew your border units together. Measure the length of these border units. Now cut 4 strips in the background fabric that is 3 3/4" wide x the length measured above. Sew these strips to each border unit.  ( ignore the seams in the picture below - your plain strip is cut in one length)  Now we need to make the 4 corner units. Once finished you will will attach two corner units to either end of 2 of your border units.  The corner unit consists of a four patch bordered on two sides by a mitred edge.  The four patch section consist of squares cut 2 1/8". The mitred edges are strips cut 3 3/4" x 7 3/8" and then trimmed on one edge at 45 degrees.     To sew this corner unit together, first make the four patch sections. Then pin and sew one mitred border from the straight side edge to the corner, stopping 1/4" short of the angled edge. Press.    Pin your second mitred border piece to the adjacent edge Beginning at the straight edge, sew towards the mitre, stop at the 1/4", lift the machine foot keeping the machine needle down to hold the fabric in place. Align the two pointy corner pieces and the mitred edge. Lower the foot and continue sewing to the end of the seam.     Your corner section seams should align with your border section seams. Attach two corner sections to the end of two pieced borders as below. You are now ready to attach the first two borders to the side edges of your quilt (the two without the corners attached.) Make sure you pin the borders and then sew. Press the quilt and then attach the second two borders (with the corners attached) again pinning first to align seams.  Phew!!! Nearly there!! The last border is a plain background border cut at 3 1/4", so it's time to press and measure your quilt, so you'll be able to cut the first two strips to the correct size. I would suggest measuring the quilt through the centre and cutting those 3 1/4" strips to this length, as a last effort in squaring up the quilt. Once you have the first two strips cut you can sew them on and press them. Repeat this step cutting the last two border strips to size before pinning and sewing them on.  Congratulations... if you are here with me now, you have a finished quilt top!! I hope you have enjoyed this years' challenging quilt - I think it is quite stunning and a credit to your sewing skills.  Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Have a safe and relaxing holiday season.  Much love Danni xx

Hello again BOMers.  We are on a roll with indoor plants in the quilt pattern - last month was African Violets and now it's time for the classic house plant - the anthurium.  You recall them from the 70s and 80s right? After a little google search I discovered that each tiny spot on the spadix ( the central column) is actually an individual flower. And you thought this was just about making quilt blocks?                                                   Alright, enough with the horticulture - let's get to the sewing.. So here is the downloadable pattern for this months block. (Remember not to change the size when you print it.) Of course we also have the layout sheet and number guides below so you can work out what is going where... I'm sure this block is going to keep you busy for a bit - this month is a catch up before we head of to the USA for Quilt Festival, so please forgive me if I'm a bit remiss getting the patterns uploaded. Im going to try to get them all scheduled to post at the beginning of each month just in case I lose track of the date! Till next time Danni xx  

Hello again, glad to see you are back for more.  At the halfway mark we are welcoming in a flower with more than one common name.  I know them as a cornflower, but their other name is batchelors button.  This European native got it's name as they used to grow as weeds in the corn and wheat fields. The dried flowers have medicinal qualities, treating everything from fever to menstrual disorders.  I just love them for their intense colour. When you say something is "cornflower" blue, there is no mistaking it. Here is this months' pattern To help with the block layout, here are the colour guides and number guides I hope you are enjoying seeing your blocks come together as much as I am.  See you next month!  

Welcome to Month 5! Happy Mothers Day this month to all Aussie mums as this months block is the Chrysanthemum.  They are the tradional choice of flowers for mothers on their special day. As a busy mum, I would say, yes the flowers are lovely, but another day off a year would be better!!! Here is the pattern for this month. Here are the colour and number charts to help you sort out where the bits all go Well wherever you are on Sunday 12th May, regardless of whether you are a mum or not, I hope you have a lovely day. And if those around you don't spoil you, make sure you spoil yourself xx

JUNE?? Really? Where does the time go.... Before we go too much further, its time to remind you to make sure you have enough of your background fabric to use for the plain borders.  I did talk about this in the fabric reqs at the very beginning of this project - so this is just a timely reminder if you havent because you'll be running out of lenghthy background soon! Here's what I said...  "Fabric requirements... I designed this quilt to use scraps, fat quarters, etc. If you choose just 5 or 6 prints and a background, that will work too! The background will require around 4.5 m according to EQ7.  If you want to cut off the long borders first then cut off 2.1m of fabric  First border - cut 4" Second border - cut 6" Set these aside for later, you can now use the remaining background fabric in your blocks" This Months block is called Ornate Star. Here is the key and rotary cutting instructions for this block..  So reading off the "map" of our block  A - 2 7/8 " Squares ,cut once on the diagonal to yield 2 triangles  ( background) B - 5 1/4" Squares, cut twice on the diagonal to yield 4 triangles (background, main and accent) C - 4 1/2" squares ( 1 in accent colour) D - 3 3/8" squares ( 4 in accent colour) Putting this block together should be a breeze - you all seem to be coping really well with the general construction so far.  Its made in rows, like many of the other blocks.  Here is the layout.  Here are my sewing pics for the units .. These are made like last months block  - ( pin the edge you want to sew and you wont muck it up) Then join them together and your star points are made. Youll be making 4 like this. The other 4 blocks are "square in a square" blocks.  Once you have them made, grab your centre square and start making rows. And the finished block... Next months block is a similar construction. Heres a look at it.  Its the same block, without the detail in the corners.  Lets see who gets it made before I put the instructions up....  

Welcome! As an added extra for my regular attendees of 2017 at The Quilting Patch I have offered them a Block of The Month Quilt Project. It's a sampler quilt with an Irish chain feature to separate the blocks. Usually sampler quilts will have sashings in between the blocks to help frame each block, but I think you'll agree the Irish chain block, that is the alternate block in this quilt, does the same thing. It also makes the blocks appear as though they are set on point. This sampler would look great in any colour scheme you choose and I cant wait to see what you have come up with! Ill be posting some of the students blocks here too so you can see how they are going.  I have designed this quilt using EQ7.  So lets get into it! (The Quilt is 80" x 80", finished block size is 12", all seams are 1/4 inch) Fabric requirements... I designed this quilt to use scraps, fat quarters, etc. If you choose just 5 or 6 prints and a background, that will work too! The background will require around 4.5 m according to EQ7.  If you want to cut off the long borders first then cut off 2.1m of fabric  First border - cut 4" Second border - cut 6" Set these aside for later, you can now use the remaining background fabric in your blocks January... This month's block is called Key Lime Pie. Here is the key and rotary cutting instructions for this block..  A  -  2 1/2" x 4 1/2" B -   5 1/4" square cut twice on the diagonal to yield 4 triangles C - 2 1/2" square D - 4 1/2" square E - 4 7/8" square, cut once on the diagonal to yield 2 triangles How is it sewn together? If you look back at the Key picture youll notice the block is made up of 3 distinct units. I have numbered them in the layout below.  1. The centre square ( D from above) 2. Star points 3. Corner units Now here is where I'm going to make a big assumption that you can sew these units without too much instruction. BUT do let me know if you'd like a bit more advice or step by step photos. Please feel free to contact me and email me pics of your blocks!