The Vintage Flower Samper Quilt - Sugar Plum and Pears

Oh goodness! I can't believe this is the last week of our Sew Along. We have had the best time sewing along with all of you, but best of all it has been wonderful getting to know each of you better and connecting with you every week. We are going to miss this weekly visit. There are several "Meet Up" dates scheduled, where we will get back together to go over sashing, borders, and quilting. Here is the schedule: 

Meet Up #1 - October 16, 2023 - sashing

Meet Up #2 - November 20, 2023 - borders

Meet Up #3 - December 11, 2023 - quilting

The blocks for this week are the patchwork block, Sugar Plum, and the applique block, Pears.

Sugar Plum - 

This is such a sweet block, but I'm not gonna lie....it's challenging.

I used the CutRite Heavy Duty Freezer Paper to make my templates. The CutRite works well if you are using the template over and over. 

Once all the templates are cut, it's time to stitch the center swirly part of the block. I found it's more important to make sure the outer part of this part meets nicely to create a circle. The center is going to be covered by template A. Press all your seams in one direction, following the diagram in the book. Take care not to stretch as there are lots of bias edges in this block. 

Now it's time to create the outer ring. Again, make sure the outside edge creates a nice smooth curve. Press the seams toward the colorful triangle. And, again, take care not to stretch with all the bias edges. 

I DID NOT applique these two circles together (the swirly center circle and the outer triangle circle). Rather, I carefully pinned the swirly center to the outer circle. Make sure you are meeting the seams properly. I found it helpful to use my quarter inch foot and run a basting stitch around the swirly center. Then I could match the outer circle to the center and preserve my points. After the block was complete, I just removed any basting stitches that might be showing. 

Finally, instead of stitching the entire circle to a pieced background, I cut a 13" square from my background fabric. I folded the background square in half both ways and pressed a crease. I arranged the large circle in the center of the background square. Then I used applique to stitch the large circle to the background. Again, I ran a basting stitch a quarter inch from the edge on the large circle. This gave me a turn line to applique the center to the background.

I flipped the block over and carefully cut away the extra fabric from the center circle to reduce bulk. Give the block a good press and trim to 12.5" square. 

Pears -

Well, this block is just delightful! I wasn't as eager to start this block, but once I finished, I absolutely loved it! It's an easy shape and by now everyone is a master at leaves. The embroidery stitches make every part of this block just pop!

Enjoy your blocks this week. I can't wait to see them! We will be drawing names for more fun treats in about a week. Be sure to use the hashtag #thevintageflowersamplerquiltsal 

Thank you to everyone who participated and everyone who cheered us on! This was a super duper fun sew along!