Tiptoe QAL Week Four: Block A Piecing

Happy Monday friends! How was cutting last week? Hope it was painless and simple. Felt like it took forever (but then I think I cut out enough for a twin and a king, so there's that).

If you haven't already, you should download the pattern from my Craftsy shop. Remember, it's free as long as the QAL is going on. So don't delay!

I promised tips and tricks and here they are. Today, we're all about Block A. Symmetrical. Matchy matchy leaves. Nothing dark magic about this, but here's a few ideas.

• To make the center of the tulip a shade lighter, here's a little trick I learned from Lori Holt. Simply flip over the print so that you are sewing the right side of your background square to the wrong side of your print rectangle.

Once you add your outer bloom blocks, this time sewing right sides together, you'll get a finished bloom that looks like this:

The perfect, just lighter print.

Here's how things will look from the back side of your block:

• Watch those directional prints carefully. You might be able to see my lines in the last picture up there - drew them on going to wrong way. I'm slightly neurotic about that, so it might just be me. But just double check to save you some seam ripping time!
• HRT tips - check out this blog post at Craftsy for some great pointers (why re-write it?)
• Best Press starch, or make your own (I'm totally going to try this recipe!) - this really helps give the blocks crisp seams and all those good things

Finished blocks will look like this, but less cartoon-y and much more realistic!