One diamond down and more about directional prints

The final round has been stitched to one of the diamonds that will flank the centre medallion in my quilt The Meadery. I used a deep honey gold fabric and I think that it worked perfectly! The diamond is made with 3/4" hexagons so it is quite large. Now I have to stitch the gold to the second diamond.

Quite often  I write about directional prints and the concept of paying attention to the direction of the print when constructing any type of block whether it is a simple nine patch or a hexagon rosette. This is a simple little nine patch made of scrap. Notice how I've used two directional prints, the white in the corners and the beige stripe that makes the cross. The block would not have been anywhere near so effective had I not paid attention to the direction of the print.

Stripes are a great example of a directional print. Make them work for you, not against you. In the following picture I've used the same fabric in two different ways but it both I paid careful attention to the direction of the stripes.

This hexagon rosette is a directional print and I made sure that the white chrysanthemums were radiating out from the centre. 

Again you can see that the pale vines are radiating out from the centre. 

You can look at some fabrics and you know they are directional but others may not be so obvious. This first fabric is clearly a directional print.

But if you weren't sure here's a simple little trick. Make a fold so that you have a right angle. If the fabric looks the same on both sections it likely isn't directional but if it looks different then it is directional and you will want to bear this in mind when cutting and sewing. You can see in the following picture that the little trees are on their sides on the folded fabric.

This first rosette was stitched without giving any thought to the direction of the fabric. It would work just fine in a quilt.

However I am a firm believer that it is the little details that take a quilt block (or hexagon rosette) from fine to much better! You can see that in this block the little trees are radiating out from the centre and it makes a difference to the look of the block.

Some fabrics may be more challenging. At first glance you may not thing that this is directional but look closely at the little green and yellow figure 8s with the white cross bars. The green is in the upper left and the yellow the lower right. The little white bar runs from lower left to upper right.

When the fabric is folded you can see that it is a directional print. Not is is a subtle difference so it wouldn't make a huge difference in a block but I think it is worth noting the direction of the print and placing your fabrics accordingly.

In this block I did pay attention to the direction of the print when I positioned and stitched my hexagons.

It feels like Autumn the past two days - cool and drizzling rain. I went for a good long walk yesterday and picked a bunch of crab apples for my Mom to make jelly. Aren't the colours glorious. I think that they would make a fabulous quilt! I might just go pick some more today before I settle down for sewing.

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Karen H