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Welcome to Debbie Shore's Block of the Month Quilt (2020)

Quick Links: What you'll need Project steps

Join Debbie Shore’s sew-along and you'll create 12 quilt blocks that form a patchwork sampler quilt.

Welcome to my 2020 Block of the Month (BOTM) sew-along. This year’s BOTM is a sampler quilt based on one I designed with my good friend and quilt designer, Melissa Nayler. As the name suggests, this quilt offers a variety of patchwork techniques that will give you a series of invaluable skills which you can apply to your own quilts in the future. At first glance, you may feel the quilt looks more challenging than last year’s and, yes, it is, but with my step by step instructions, I’ll guide you through the various processes to make it achievable.

My quilt differs slightly from Melissa’s version (shown at the bottom), as I am using pink fabric in place of the black, and orange in place of the blue-grey fabric, as I loved the idea of using bolder colours! If you’d like to make the quilt in the same colours as I have, I have teamed up with the lovely Hunkdory and Inspirations store team to make a gorgeous fabric bundle that includes all the materials you need for the quilt topper. All you will need is the backing fabric and wadding/batting of your choice! See below for details.

Make this quilt your own, and feel free to make the blocks in different colours, or with scraps of fabric you already have to hand. Furthermore, if you don’t want to make the whole quilt top, choose only those patterns or techniques you’ve always wanted to try and make some of the individual projects. For those of you with patchwork and quilting experience, hopefully you’ll add your individual interpretations to make a quilt that’s even more unique to you. So, let’s get going!

Finished quilt size: 40 x 50in (101.75 x 127cm)

Block sizes (once complete):

• Ten of the blocks measure 10in (25.5cm) square
• Flying Geese block (for the border) measures 5 x 2½in (12.75 x 6.5cm)
• Large central appliqué block measures 10 x 20in (25.5 x 51cm)

Overall techniques:

• Appliqué (hand or machine – instructions will be given for both)
• General Piecing
• Curved Piecing
• Log Cabin (off centre)
• English Paper Piecing (EPP)
• Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP)
• Dresden Plate
• Bargello
• Flying Geese Quilt

Tips:

• Use a ¼in (5mm) seam allowance throughout, unless otherwise stated.
• Press all seams as you stitch
• When cutting out, be conservative with your fabric – don’t leave large gaps between cutting shapes.
• Keep all scraps – you’ll be able to use these for some of the smaller pieces throughout the quilt!

I will refer to my fabric key throughout to guide you on which fabrics to use in each block. If you’re using your own fabrics, I would suggest you take a small swatch of each of your fabrics and prepare your own key, labelling them PAT 1–5 for the patterned fabrics and PL 1–5 for the plains. However, you don’t have to follow my fabric placement – by all means, do your own thing and you’ll create a unique, individual quilt. However, I suggest that you are mindful of how you spread the range of fabrics throughout the whole quilt. Alternatively, use fabric from your stash to create a totally scrappy quilt; any smaller prints and plains would be ideal. Some of my prints are directional but, in most cases, the pieces are so small there is no need to get hung up about ensuring they’re always the right way up.

Before we start, we will need to cut some of the fabrics from the ones detailed below, in preparation for some of the future blocks. These cuts are slightly larger than required, but will be trimmed on completion:

1. Cut one 11in (28cm) wide strip in BG fabric. From this strip, subcut the following:
   • One 11in (28cm) square for the March (Dresden Plate) block
   • One 11in (28cm) square for the May (EPP) block
   • Use the remainder for the August (Central Appliqué Panel) block

2. Cut a strip from each PAT fabric measuring 16½ x 2½in (42 x 6.5cm), and reserve these for December (Bargello) block.

The first block will be out January 1st 2020, and I'll link all of the blocks below as they come out, so you can always find them when you need them!

• Block 1: Flying Geese Border
• Block 2: Four Corners Posy
• Block 3: Dresden Plate
• Block 4: Heart Flowers
• Block 5: English Paper Pieced Flower
• Block 6: New York Beauty (Foundation Paper Piecing)
• Block 7: Flower Basket
• Block 8: Flowers in My Bird Garden
• Block 9: Offset Log Cabin
• Block 10: Flower Head
• Block 11: Tulips
• Block 12: Bargello

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You will need:

Equipment

• Sewing machine
• Iron
• Rotary cutter, self-healing mat and quilting ruler
• Scissors – dressmaking shears and paper scissors
• Hand-sewing needle
• Tape measure
• Pencil, tailor’s chalk or erasable marker pen
• Templates – these are available for printing off are provided where appropriate
• Optional: pair of compasses, 6½in square quilting ruler

Materials

• Two Fat-Quarter bundles with five pieces in each – if you’re using your own fabrics, I would suggest one patterned (PAT) bundle and one plain (PL). My fabrics are shown at the bottom of this introduction

• 1¾yd (1.5m) of Background Fabric (BG) – choose something fairly plain, perhaps a cream or white-on-white fabric; or, depending on your fat quarter fabrics, a dark background would also look good

• 1½yd (140cm) length of 1¼yd (110cm) wide piece of backing fabric – I used Textured Blender in Spot White by The Craft Cotton Co.

• 1½yd (140cm) length of 1¼yd (110cm) wide piece of fabric OR 1½yd (140cm) length of single-fold quilt binding, for binding – I have used a red fabric to correspond with the red you can see in some of the fat quarters

• 1¼ x 1½yd (110 x 140cm) piece of wadding/batting

• Quilting threads

• Fabric adhesive sheets (e.g. Bondaweb) for machine appliqué

• Heavy-weight card (cereal box card will do) to reproduce most templates and light-weight card or heavy-weight paper for English Paper Piecing (EPP) templates (recycled Christmas Cards are good for this)

• Photocopy or light-weight paper for Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP) templates

• Optional: fabric glue pen for EPP and appliqué (tack/baste, if preferred); repositionable spray fabric adhesive (tack/baste, if preferred); spray starch

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