Saint Paddy Round 1

Welcome to round 1 of the Saint Paddy SAL.

If you are Irish (or not) you know that St Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday celebrating the Patron Saint of Ireland, St Patrick. The myth is that St Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, and suggests they are referring to the Pagans. St Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland.

To celebrate, traditionally the Irish picked shamrock and attach them to their lapels on St Patrick’s Day, attended church, feasted and enjoyed a guinness or two, or more amongst friends and family. The shamrock represents the Holy Trinity.

The Irish don’t drink green beer or dye their rivers green in celebration. You may ask, how did we begin celebrating an Irish holiday?

We can thank the Irish who migrated to the US and those who came here as indentured servants for bringing this celebration to us. This is a reminder that we all came from someplace.

My chosen fabric

Isn’t is gorgeous? Meet The Grove, one of the new fabric releases from Island Batik. The Grove will be shipping to LQS next month, ask for it by name.

island batik fabric, the grove, a quiltery, quiltery, aquitery, for the love of gesse, st paddy quilt, paper pieced quilt pattern,

The collection includes 20 different fabrics and as you can see, plenty of light, medium and dark to balance your projects. Island Batik sent this to me as part of the Ambassador program to use in their May blog hop. I can’t wait to see this quilt come together.

Round 1

Saint Paddy Round 1 is the release of the center medallion. The medallion consists of 16 blocks and is the focal point of our quilts. If you find a more pleasing layout for these 16 blocks, I welcome it. I think you’ll find these are fast and easy blocks to build.

Here is the layout for what we are making this week, our 3 leaf clovers (shamrocks), or 4 if you prefer.

Cutting

It is helpful to pair your fabric with their templates.
If you’d like all of your shamrock blocks to be the same color you will need 1 full yard of the focus fabric, roughly 3/4 yard of contrasting fabric, along with background fabric.
Patches A1 & B1-From your focus fabric cut strips 9″ x WOF. With careful cutting and placement you should be able to get 8 patches per strip. See Image 1 below.
From contrasting fabric- patches A2, A3, A4 and B2, B3, B4- Cut strips 2″ x WOF.
From background fabric- patches A5, A6, B5, B6-Cut strips 2 1/2″ x WOF.
From background fabric- patch C- Cut strip 4 1/2″ x WOF.
For help paper piecing with strips see Flower Patch SAL and Paper Piecing Tutorial 1, 2, and 3 on my YouTube channel.

Placing templates on Fabric Sheets

You only need to cover patches A1 and B1 with your focus fabric. Place a couple dabs of glue on the paper template, lay your template on the 9″ fabric strip and hold them up the light. If patches A1 and B1 are fully covered including the 1/4″ seam allowance, you are safe to cut your fabric with the template in place. Cut close to the template edge to remove from strip.

Rotate your next template to fit the diagonal line you just cut. Piece your templates following marked piecing order.

Place a dab of glue using a washable glue stick on template C and stick to the strip. The next template you will rotate. See Image 2 below.

Finishing blocks

Trim paper and excess fabric from pieced templates following directions in Round 1 Download. For a visual visit my YouTube channel, link above.

Join patches A and B, press seam open.

Attach patch C to AB, press seam up.

You will make 16 total blocks for Round 1. Join blocks in your preferred layout or mine.

Information

You will have 1 week to download Round 1 free. After 1 week each round will be paid.

Come back on April 29th and share your progress in the linky party, if you like. Should you need help linking up, please leave a comment letting me know and I will help you.

The clover (shamrock) blocks alone make for a great wall hanging to enjoy in March. My quilt will be enjoyed throughout the year and I hope you’ll stick around for all 4 rounds!

Dates

Round 2 April 29th-Round 2-linky party and pattern release. This round will consist of rotary cutting all borders. There is an inside border, middle border and the outside border. Come back on May 6th to share your progress.

Round 3 May 6th-Round 3-linky party and pattern release. This round will be quilt blocks, you may paper piece these blocks, or use traditional patchwork. Rotary cutting dimension are supplied along with the templates for paper piecing the blocks. Come back on May 13th to share your progress.

Round 4 May 13th-Round 4-linky party and final pattern release. This round will be quilt blocks and may be paper pieced or pieced using traditional patchwork. Rotary cutting dimension will be supplied along with the templates for paper piecing the blocks. Come back May 22nd to share your flimsy or quilted top.

Share your finish May 22nd– linky party finish. In order to qualify for prizes you must linkup your progress on May 22md. It can be a flimsy, a finished quilt, or all completed blocks and borders laid out in the photo.

See St Paddy page for more information and prizes.

My chosen fabric