ARGHHH and working with the fussy cut diamonds

I decided that I would give the Lazy Punk blocks that I've made thus far a wash. I was worried that there might be one or two fabrics that might bleed and since this quilt is going to be used it will also be washed. Well I was absolutely right about the bleeding thing!!!!! The shot cotton in this block bled - DRAT!

 

I didn't notice the bleeding until the fabric was almost dry.

 

So far all of the other blocks are fine so I'll ponder what to do with this one. I did wash it a second time in the sink with a Shout Colour Catcher and I think it helped. I'll cut up another Colour Catcher and stitch it to the affected areas before washing it again. If it doesn't work I'll have to decide can I live with the colour damage or do I want to make a new block. At the moment I'm leaning towards living with it! After all, the name of my quilt is Lazy Punk and leaving the block as is would be in keeping with the theme - just plain lazy! I think I just made a decision.

Here are the most recent Lazy Punk blocks.

So I thought I would show you what I do with my diamonds once I've cut then from strips.  I'll need a glue stick (fabric safe), six diamond papers and my fabric diamonds. With the wrong side up I lay the diamonds out making sure that they are all facing the same direction. Notice the small grey blue flower on the lower left side is in the same position on each diamond.

I place a small dab of glue on a paper and position it on one diamond. The top of the diamond is almost at the end of a vine where it plugs into a flower or leaf and at the bottom the point is just at the edge of the blue grey flower.

Taking note of the position of the paper on the first diamond I now place a little glue on the second paper and position it on the fabric looking at the same marker positions. I repeat this process until all six papers are glued to the fabric diamonds.

I clip the points and baste. If you need help with basting diamonds you can read about how I do it here.

Once they are all basted I can lay them out before deciding how to stitch them together (I'll demonstrate that tomorrow). Depending on which point is in the centre, two very different blocks emerge!

Just in case you are curious, this is how they started out before being basted!

You can see how they look slightly different before being basted.

And here's one more tip for fun. If you don't want to create a kaleidoscope effect with all six diamonds, why not use only three print diamonds and alternate them with three diamonds cut from a complementary fabric? That would be fun and would stretch your blocks even further.

Until I post again, happy sewing!