Christmas Mystery Quiltalong Week 2!

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Welcome to Week 2 of the Christmas Mystery Quiltalong – a quick, fun quiltalong where we’ll be making a table topper, just in time for Christmas!

Thank you to all of you who already showed me photos of your week 1 four patches!

Proposed Schedule for the Christmas Mystery Quiltalong

Week 1 – Wednesday 23rd November – Materials Needed and First Step

Week 2 – Today! – Second step

Week 3 – Wednesday 7th December -Third step

Week 4 – Wednesday 14th December – Final instructions!

Christmas Mystery Week 2 Cutting Instructions Part 1

From Fabric B (my red) cut:

• Eight (8) 5 1/4″ squares

From the background fabric cut:

• Eight (8) 5 1/4″ squares

Christmas Mystery Week 2 Sewing

This week we are going to make hourglass blocks! I’ve included lots of photos for those who are beginners. If you already know how to make an hourglass block, feel free to scroll past most of the photos!

Christmas Mystery Week 2 Cutting Part 2 & Sewing Step 1

Take one of the red and one of the background squares. Cut them in half on the diagonal, twice to make triangles, as seen in the picture below:

Arrange the triangles like this:

Take one red and one white triangle and sew them right sides together like this:

Press to the dark side to create half of the hourglass block like this:

In the same way, sew the other triangles together until you have four halves of the hourglass block:

Christmas Mystery Week 2 Sewing Step 2

Pin two halves together like this:

I like to pin diagonally, going from one side of the seam to the other:

I find that holds the nested seams in place nicely. I then slowly sew over the pin… yes… over 🙂 Slowly 🙂

Sew the two halves together and you’ll have something like this:

Press, and trim it down to 4 1/2″ square:

I like to use Lori Holt’s Cute Cuts Tim It ruler, it is perfect for something like this!

Sew the other two halves together, press and trim and from the one red and one background square you will have two hourglass blocks:

Of course we have seven more red and background squares….

… which we are going to turn into more hourglass blocks, to make a total of 16!

I cut all of mine and piled them up together…

…then I paired them up and chain sewed…

And ended up with 16 hourglass blocks:

That is it for this week!

It’s late as I’m typing this up – so if I was unclear or made any mistakes or typos, please let me know!

Happy sewing!