Les Amis Block of the Month – January

I finally joined my first block of the month program. This has been something I’ve wanted to do for awhile, but lack of confidence in my skills has held me back. I ended up going with Craftsy’s Les Amis Quilt Block of the Month designed by Shelley Cavanna.  It looks like it will be challenging without being frustrating for me, and I like having the companion videos and being able to ask questions was a huge plus.  Also, it’s on sale and who doesn’t love a good sale.

The Kit

I waited till my kit arrived before diving into anything that was available digitally.  Not going to lie, unpacking the kit was slightly overwhelming.  There is a ton of fabric in there. There is also printed version of the directions that you get digitally from Craftsy, so you don’t have to use up all your ink.

The written directions are broken up into different blocks, but not months. This is quickly remedied when you start looking at the videos which are broken into months for your convenience.

Cutting the Fabric

Cutting fabric is possibly one of my least favorite things to do, and accuracy is not my friend. Going through the directions for all the cutting I would have to do gave me an anxiety attack.  I don’t have a lot of space, and do most of my cutting on the floor. There is a reason I use a lot of precuts.  This pattern calls for a large amount of cutting on the eighths.  That being said, after two full days of cutting, I have gotten slightly better at accuracy.  Only time will tell.  If you have an actual table to cut on, it won’t be that bad.

Craftsy sends a ton of fabric, and, with one exception, I have a decent amount of leftover to handle any mistakes.  The exception is did not receive the correct amount of one fabric, and did not have nearly enough to cut all my blocks for. (Update: Craftsy emailed out updated cutting instructions to fit with the amount of fabric sent.) Since I was already planning on buying more fabric to expand the quilt to queen size anyways, another 1/8 yard is not a huge deal, but still disappointing.

Shelley has included a video to go over cutting and everything needed to get ready.  She explains things in a manner that is good for beginners and veterans alike. A lot of the first video is basic stuff that was a good refresher.  I loved that she included tips for how to store everything if you didn’t have a lot of space.  This is often overlooked by a lot of teachers, but is huge for quilters like me.  (My dedicated quilt space is a fold out table big enough for my sewing machine.)

January’s Block

The first block done is Flower Stars.  According to Shelley, this is the easiest block of the quilt.  After doing the block, I’m slightly nervous since I had some issues, but we’ll see how next month goes.

The video for this block is excellent. She goes over how to cut with templates as well as tips for if you use the paper templates.  I bought the plastic templates because my printer is notorious for resizing things.  After watching this video though, I am more confident about trying paper templates in the future.  Shelley also explains why you shouldn’t do things certain ways instead of just saying ‘don’t do this’ which is extremely useful.

I did have some issues getting things to line up, but improved slowly the more I did.  This is definitely a block I need to practice more.  I see an entire quilt (or two) of just this block in the near future.  It did force me to slow down a lot and focus on accuracy more than I normally do, which is good cause I need that.

In the end, I am happy with my block.  There are a lot of issues, but my whole reason for doing this is to improve and learn, which after this block I think I made the right choice.  Keep an eye out for next month’s block.

January Block of the Month Flower Star

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