Time to Quilt Block 9 is here

Fellow Quilters,

Do you like leftovers?  Hubby and I sometimes like them better than the original meal.  Lasagna, for instance, is so good as leftovers.  Last night I made a turkey pot pie with the leftover turkey from Sunday’s dinner.

Last night’s dinner – turkey pot pie and chocolate brownies – yum!

I make my own pastry – it’s quite easy.  The next time I make some I’ll show you my tricks and tools to make it almost foolproof.  Here’s an easy hack for the best pastry ever for savoury pies – put 3-4 tbsp of parmesan cheese in the flour before you add the shortening or butter.  It makes the pastry “short” – it crumbles in your mouth – and really tasty.  I made some chocolate brownies too, from a mix (I was too busy sewing blocks!).  It’s almost as good as homemade – at least Hubby says so.  What cooking or baking hacks do you have?  Which mixes are as good as homemade?

Shall we get to today’s block?  Time to Quilt Block 9 is another straightforward block similar to Blocks 1, 6 and 8 in that it has half-square triangle units and squares – that’s it!  And just like yesterday’s block I have no modifications to the original instructions posted on Northcott’s, Banyan’s and FIGO’s Facebook page other than the addition of the make-it-mini and super-size versions.  I do however have a handy marking tip for those half-square triangle squares:

Today’s tip:  My second favorite tool for quiltmaking (my favorite tool is of course my E-Z Miter tool for fast fool-proof mitered borders and lone stars 😊) is the Clover Hera marker for applique.

Clover Hera Marker for applique

It is smaller than the regular Hera marker I often see when I teach.  I usually use this tool for finger-pressing my seams to one side before I press with an iron.  In fact I tend not to press with an iron until the block is finished – that’s how good a job the Hera marker does at finger-pressing.  You can see a short YouTube video of me using it for this purpose here.  I also use the pointy end as a stiletto when I am feeding the patches under the presser foot as I sew them.  The third use is one the tool was actually intended for, and that is scoring a line on the fabric.  Instead of drawing those diagonal lines on the A squares with a pen, I can use the Hera marker.

I use the Hera marker instead of a pen to score the diagonal line on my A squares.

(I should have used the Hera marker instead of a pen when I drew the lines on the wrong squares while making Block 5 ☹.)  It works particularly well on busy fabrics where a line is hard to see.

The scored line shows up well on busy fabrics

The regular Hera marker works just as well – press just hard enough to see the line, not hard enough to cut the fabric.  Some of the regular ones have a very sharp edge.

I wasn’t paying attention to my Midsommar quilt layout photo and forgot to replace some of my fabric with background gray, so I had some “frogging” to do – RIP-IT, RIP-IT.

Extra pieces cut and sewn in error

Before I knew it the blocks were done!

Block 9 is done!

You can find my instructions for Block 9 here.

Northcott has used a pretty dogwood floral from The Joys of Spring for their block today, while Banyan has used Jungle Rose.  The 2 quilts look so different even though the layout is the same!  Pop on over to Daphne’s blog to see 2 other layout options for quilts made with Block 9 and to see what’s on her design wall.

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow 😊

Patti