Tu-Na Quilts: I Wish You a Merry Quilt-A-Long Block 7 Released Today

Did you know there’s a song about a poinsettia? It starts out:

♪ Percy the puny poinsettia
Is hanging his bloom in dismay
If they had just kept him wetta
He’d be a houseplant today
Folks liked the other plants betta
Now he’s alone on the shelf
Even a plant with no uncle or aunt
Shouldn’t spend Christmas Day by himself ♪

If you’re interested in finding out what happens to Percy, you can listen to it here.

The seventh block in our I Wish You A Merry Quilt-A-Long just happens to be a poinsettia. However, this poinsettia definitely isn’t puny and it sure is cute.

The pattern can be found here at SandyStar Designs.

You will have fun sewing this one. Ohhh, the possibilities! I wanted to use just one color for all of the petals but wanted to make a definition between them. Voila, ric rac to the rescue. I plan to use ric rac in many of these blocks. I liked ric rac as a little girl and still do. I think I’ll start a campaign to promote the use of ric rac again. There used to be so many colors to choose from at the store and now the selection is rather limited. So let’s start using more ric rac.

Adding the ric rac, took a bit of thought. I started by machine basting the ric rack onto the piece that I wanted it to lay flat against.

Then I pressed the seam open.

Check the picture below to see how I easily squared the half square triangle/quarter square triangle pieces.

I aligned the diagonal line on my square ruler along the seam line as noted by the black arrows. I made sure the cutting line on the right side of the ruler would fall exactly at 3.5 inches at the place where the quarter square triangle seams joined as noted by the red arrow. This is very important as it ensures the square will be cut accurately and each quarter square triangle will be the correct size helping tremendously when matching seams.

Sewing all that ric rac in the seams produced quite a clump in the middle. It was so thick when I joined the final two seams that I didn’t even try to sew through it. I didn’t want to break a needle but I tried to get as close as I could to the center.

Once all the seams were sewn and pressed, I cut away the center making sure there would still be plenty of block that would be covered by the appliqued circle.

Reducing this bulk, helped the appliqued center lie flat.

I used a vintage thread spool to trace around for the center part of the poinsettia.

I often look for items to trace around especially round things.

That’s how I made my pretty-but not puny-Poinsettia.

Are you making a Poinsettia this week?

Grab your fabric and sew up a poinsettia today.

Then post the picture on either Sandy’s party link on her blog or on the I Wish You a Merry Quilt-A-Long Facebook page or tag # #iwishyouamerryqal on Instagram to win some prizes. Remember you have until October 23rd at 11.59 PM to link or post your pic to be entered to win.

Special thanks to Jennifer at The Inquiring Quilter for supplying a pattern for the giveaway. You can find her pattern shop here.

At the end of the QAL there will be a link to download a picture of your finished quilt. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must make a quilt top using all twelve of the QAL blocks by January 16th, 2018. Thank you to all these sponsors for prizes.

Here’s all my blocks.

Find info on where to get the pattern and see my Block 3-Santa’s Belt here, Block 4-Christmas Memories (ornaments) here, Block 5-Snowman here, and Block 6-Angel here. As you can see, I am still working on blocks one and two, so you see, there’s still time for you to join along. You can find the pattern for block one-snowflake here and block 2-tree farm here.

Meet the rest of the I Wish You a Merry Quilt-A-Long Hosts as they reveal their version of this block

Pretty Piney
Sparkle On
JANDA Bend Quilts
Snowy Days Quilting
Cwilt
The Inquiring Quilter
Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats You are here. Thanks for stopping by.
Slice of Pi Quilts
SandyStar Designs Here’s the creative designer behind this seventh block in the I Wish You a Merry Quilt-A-Long. You’ll find the pattern here on her site as well as a full tutorial.
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Quilt in Piece

Look for block 8 to be released today also! You can find my version of Block 8 here. Block 9 will be released on October 24th.

Coming soon:

A visit to the Quilted Ceiling Quilt Shop in Valley City, ND.

A look at all the Quilt MN Shop Hop loot

What I Learned Today?

There appears to be a song written for just about anything.
There’s a lot of creative quilters making this quilt. I Wish You a Merry QAL facebook page shows lots of creative versions of these blocks.
Looking at all that creativity makes me want to start another one of these quilts but in blue and white.
Someone, probably on four legs, stole all of our watermelons from the garden. My husband even put them in hiding amongst the vines and laid corn stalks over the top. We picked one last week and it was delicious. I hope they enjoyed them, too.

Question: Does your Christmas decorating include buying Poinsettia plants? Do you use ric rac?

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Thanks for stopping by and do come again.

Karen, Tu-Na Quilts

Linking to:

I Wish You a Merry QAL Linky Party at SandyStar Designs

Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River

Let’s Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

WIPS at Silly Mama Quilts