Bell Quilt Block
Now that the little clappers and the stems are in each one of these bell insides, I am ready to sew this block together. This one is larger than my flannel board, so I ended up putting the centerpiece here, which goes right here on an extra piece of batting just because it is easier to pick up and carry. So this is going to be the first piece that I start sewing together. This is pretty straightforward. I am just going to put right sides together and chain stitch down, but now that those pairs are chain stitched, I am just going to fold the third layer or the third row here on top and chain stitch those.
Now the row is sewn across, so all I need to do is fold this down and stitch the rows together, so that I get the center patch completed. The top two rows are sewn together now and all I need to do is fold this bottom row up and stitch that across. This center patch is finished, so I am just going to set this one aside carefully and start working on the patches in the rest of the block.
The next thing that I am going to do is sew the center of the bell to the outside on each one of the four patches. The easiest way to do that is to pick up your outside piece and find the center of it. So you will fold it in half and then finger press the center and I put a pin on it and then open it back up. And then do the same thing with this leaf shaped piece. Just fold it in half and put a pin in it.
So now you can see you have got the two pins and what you want to do is line them up like that, and I know that looks pretty weird but you are going to spread it out after you get it lined up. So take one of the pins out and pin down, and now you have got your center. Take the other pin out and then what you are going to do is line up the ends. So you are going to line up the end of your outside piece with the tip of your leaf piece and then just smooth it out. I am going to put four or five pins in between here when I line up these right edges. So I got those on that side and then you just do the same thing on the other side. So now I have got that all pinned and ready to sew.
So I am going to put the inside of the bell on the bottom and then I am going to watch this piece, the white piece that gathers to make sure that I am not sewing any cleats. So I will put this under my sewing machine and actually start with my needle in so I can take that pin out, and then I am just going to sew around. And once you are finished sewing, you just open it up.
Now that my four corners are done on the outside, it is time to sew the inside pieces on them. And lining this up is going to be exactly the same process. The only difference is that when you get to the end here, you are going to your tail on this piece. It is going to line up with everything on the piece that you have already sewn. In other words, the red in my case, the red is going to line up with the white.
Now we have our four corner patches done and the next step is to create the patches in between the corners, so what I am going to do is simply sew these triangles onto the centerpieces and it is pretty simple. Once I do that, then I am going to have squares in each one of these patches. So the first set of triangles has been sewn on, so now it is just a matter of sewing the other side of the piece on, so that is just another triangle,. And now you can see how this block really is, just a name patch of heart. So all we need to do is sew these patches together in order to make this block. I am going to just start at the top. I will fold my patches right sides together and then stitch down the side.
The first two patches in each row have been sewn together, so all I need to do is to add the third patch on each row. Now we have got the rows sewn together, so all I need to do is sew the rows to each other. The first that I am going to do is take this top row and fold it down onto the center and then sew the seam. You got the top two rows attached and now all we need is fold the bottom one up and sew that seam, and then we are ready to take it to the ironing board.
This Bell Block is now finished and as you can see, this is quite a large block. This is an 18 inch block. And I did that because the curves, it is a lot easier to sew it when the seams are a lot longer. They are more gentle curves. This was a very fun block to do. It had a few more challenges, but you can see when you divide it all up, it is still just a nine patch and it is really easy to sew.
I hope you enjoyed joining me and watching how to sew this block together. Remember you can get your free download or the pattern for this block at www.quiltblocklibrary.com. Stay tuned because next week, we are going to start doing some stars for December. The first one we are going to do is called the Spinning Star, so watch out for that next Monday. In the meantime, peaceful piecing, this is Penny Halgren form QuiltBlogLibrary.com, signing off.
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