This Little Light of Mine

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Yay! I'm so excited to share my block for the Celebrate Christmas quilt with you today. Thank you so much to Michele for inviting me to play along! My block is called This Little Light of Mine and it's the first time I'm sharing some embroidery work with you. Get the pdf for the embroidery here. You can copy it with an erasable ink quilting pen and use as little or as much as you like. Most importantly: when you print the pdf, make sure you set page scaling to none. Otherwise, it will fill the page and not fit the quilt block! The printed size should be about 5 1/4" x 5 1/4".

For a good guide to embroidery stitches, visit We Love French Knots or Clover and Violet. I used a lot of stem stitches, some satin stitches and some french knots. Oh and the hair and face were just regular straight stitches.

Now, before I give you the piecing tutorial, I just wanted to show some options with this block!

 This block is so pretty when pieced into multiple blocks. Look at the illusion of an extra block it puts into the middle. It would make a gorgeous Christmas wallhanging or table runner. In fact, if at least 20 of you will leave me a comment commiting to make one of these, I will make up three more embroidery blocks. If you don't want to, no problem either. I just don't want to do extra work for no one but myself! :)

My fabrics are Funky Christmas by Michael Miller, which I am absolutely in love with! I bought them from the Fat Quarter Shop. And by the way, they are one of the sponsors of Celebrate Christmas and are having all kinds of great deals!

Just one more option: 12 blocks. Ambitious, yes, but also gorgeous.

Doesn't this piecing look hard? I'm here to tell you that you can do it! I have lots of fun tricks to make it easier:

PIECING
All seams are a scant 1/4". That just means not quite all the way to the 1/4" mark.
Block finishes 12 1/2" x 12 1/2" (12" x 12" in a quilt).

Fabrics: to make 4 blocks
1/4 yard of 6 contrasting fabrics, including one which will be used for embroidery. Fat quarters will also work. For one block only, just use scraps or fat eighths.

Cutting (per block):
6 1/2" square of white for center embroidery
4: 2 1/8" squares of lime print for corners
7 1/2" square of red trees
2: 4 1/2" squares of green dot
2: 4 1/2" squares of multi-colored dot and 2: 4" squares cut once diagonally
4: 2 1/2" squares of red dot cut on the diagonal once

Sewing the flying geese:
Start with the green dot squares and the multi-dot squares. Layer the 4 1/2" squares right sides together, and mark across the diagonal with a pencil.

Sew 1/4" on each side of the diagonal line. Then cut down the diagonal line you marked. Do this for both blocks, so that after cutting you now have four pieces. This is when I like to square the blocks up (to 4") using the Quilt in a Day Square Up ruler. However, you can also square them up after you press them open. Press to the green dot.

Now taking the 7 1/2" red tree print square, carefully place two of these blocks down. Take note of the direction of the diagonals and the placement of the prints. It needs to be just like the picture below:

Again, mark diagonally and then sew 1/4" on each side of this marked line. Cut apart on the diagonal line. After pressing, this is what you have.

Take another of the squared up 4" blocks and again place it carefully. Mark the diagonal and sew 1/4" on each side.

After cutting down your marked line, you have this:

Repeat with the remaining squared up 4" square. You now have 4 flying geese. Press the seams to the outside triangles and then square up to 3 1/2" x  6 1/2". There are many good flying geese rulers or you don't even have to use one. The most important part of squaring up is to remember to leave 1/4" above the center point and then square from there.

Corner units:

Start with the corner squares and red dot triangles. Notice that we will sew on the side of the triangle which is shorter, rather than the part we cut diagonally across the square.

Beginning with the triangle for the right side, align the edges (go ahead and lift it up to make sure it's lined up alright) so that the corner is even with both sides of the square. Sew down this side for all four corner units. Press open and then repeat with the left side triangle for all four corner squares. You will have this:

Now layer with the multi-dot triangle:

Next, sew down the line you cut diagonally, in other words the bottom of this triangle. Careful: the multi-dot triangle is cut on the bias! Square up to 3 1/2" and press to the multi-dot.

Assembly:

Place a flying geese unit on each side of the center block. Press the seams towards the flying geese.

Make two rows with a corner unit on each side of a flying geese (goose?). Pay attention to the directionality of all pieces and lock the seams of the green dot and the multi dot while assembling for perfect points. Press the seams towards the flying geese.

Place all three rows in their correct positions and sew together, pressing seams away from the center block. I would now trace the pdf embroidery and do the hand stitching.

I hope you enjoyed this block! It was really SO fun for me. If you make it, I hope you will add it to the Celebrate Christmas flickr group for a chance to win great prizes as well as to my Lilac Lane flickr group. Thanks for stopping by!

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 1 John 4:16 NIV

Love,

xoxo