Sister Sampler Quilts Book Review

Around the holidays, I received a copy of the new book Sister Sampler Quilts: 3 Modern Sampler Quilts with Paired Sister Blocks by AnneMarie Chany of Gen X Quilters. I like sampler quilts a lot and I haven’t made a quilt in awhile, so I was excited to make something from this book!

The neat thing about this book is that it is all instructions for paired blocks (meaning, a colored block with a white background and the same block except reversed – white block with a colored background), and the blocks are arranged into 3 different sampler quilts:

Of course, you can always compile your blocks in a layout of your choosing, but I think that the quilts presented in the book are laid out in a unique and thoughtful way and provide great inspiration for your own quiltmaking.

I chose two blocks from the book that I loved a lot out of the 25 block instructions – the Rising Star block and the Arkansas Snowflake block. These are really graphic blocks that totally intrigued me. The Rising Star block makes use of two sizes of half-square triangle blocks to make a star shape, and the Arkansas Snowflake uses templates. I copied both of the blocks several times, cut them out, and pasted them onto a sheet of paper (above) in the layout that I decided I wanted to use for the quilt. I calculated that I would use 17 blocks of each design. The only change I made to the blocks is that, in order to hook the Arkansas Snowflake block up to the Rising Star block, I just altered the size of the corner flying geese (I marked it in red on the top row of my print-out). Hope that makes sense, lol.

The block instructions for each design allow you to make the vice and versa of each block (the white background block and the solid background colors block). Since I was just lifting one particular block from the book, I took some notes in my book and on a separate sheet of paper for how many pieces I would need to cut to make the 17 blocks.

I know this sounds very all-over-the-place but my thought was to piece the 34 blocks and use them as background for this horse applique from the ‘Purebred’ quilt kit by Erin Michaels for Moda Fabrics. I thought to use the horse applique (the horse graphic is printed on a very large piece of white fabric) and save the rest of the fabrics for another project. I had a really hard time deciding on fabrics for my blocks, but in the end I chose a simple white and royal blue color scheme; I’m using Kona in white and in riviera colors. The inspiration for the colors came from (if you’re into horses) the racehorse Secretariat – his racing silks colors were white and blue.

Anyway, back to the book! I cut out as much fabric as I had on hand (I ran out of blue) and got to work on the Rising Star block. AnneMarie has a great chapter in the back all about techniques that you’ll use when making the blocks – flying geese, half-square triangles, etc. These techniques are shown in full-color step photos, which is very helpful.

I loved her tip for squaring up blocks – put some washi tape on the ruler to make it easier to line up the half-square triangles. Here is my block and washi tape on the ruler. I loved this technique and thought it was such a great idea.

After pressing the block, I laid a ruler down on top of it for a few seconds. The fabric is still warm from the iron and the ruler helps to flatten it before it cools. I can’t remember where I first read about this technique but I thought it was very helpful.

I used the Clearly Perfect Angles cling from New Leaf Stitches in order to make my half-square triangle blocks. This was my first time using this tool and it saved a lot of time because I didn’t need to draw a line down the center of all of my blocks. All I needed to do was cut an opening in the cling where my feed dogs were, put the cling on my machine bed, and push it down with my fingers. (Probably because it’s so cold) it didn’t stick at first but now looking at it, it’s stuck firmly to my machine (but will easily pull away when I’m done – and it’s re-usable, so I can use the same cling again and again). The cling works both for sewing down the center of the square, or…

…you can sew to the right and left of center (and cut right down the middle to form the seam allowance). Love it! Clearly Perfect Angles is amazing.

And here’s my block! I’m really excited with how it turned out, and really glad that I chose these fabrics.

I started the Arkansas Snowflake block with the templates but as I mentioned, I ran out of blue fabric.

I really enjoyed this block-and-a-half and can’t wait til my replacement fabric comes in the mail so I can make more blocks! I’ll be sure to update you when I finish all of the blocks and can attach my horse applique.

If you’d like to check this book out, it is available on Amazon or from F+W Publishing. I also invite you to check out the other stops on the blog tour for the book!