How to Quilt a Square in a Sun Block

Last week we learned how to piece a beautiful Square in a Sun block and today it’s time to machine quilt it! This particular block incorporates many designs we’ve used in other blocks like the marked sun medallion, Pebbling, Hot Path, and more straight line quilting:

I’ve been continuing my investigation of marking quilts using different types of paper and for this block I printed my quilting design pages onto printable freezer paper sheets. Make sure to use an inkjet printer to print on the paper side of the freezer paper, and do a test print with regular paper first to make sure the pattern pages are coming out the right size.
To mark with the freezer paper, I cut out the triangles with the straight lines and used a Clover craft iron to press them in place. I used this smaller iron because I didn’t want to heat set other marks I’d made on the quilt block. It did take awhile to get the freezer paper to adhere well to the block surface, but it did eventually work and held in place long enough for me to stitch on the lines.
See how this freezer paper marking technique worked for machine quilting and how it ripped away in this new video:
What do you think of Underwater Rocks? It’s definitely an easier machine quilting design than Pebbling and the texture is a total knock out! I love how nicely it stands out on the quilt, and how much faster it is to fill the quilt block.So if you find yourself struggling with Pebbling in the little triangles of this block just remember that you can always turn it into Underwater Rocks with some extra messy echoes!

Did you like the idea of marking with Freezer Paper and being able to print on it directly? It’s definitely an interesting technique that I’ll be playing with more.

Let’s go quilt!

Leah Day

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

2 Responses

  1. Bev Scott says:

    Hi Leah, Block 8 is pieced and ready to quilt. Just a thought … I might try using "foundation paper" that can be printed. It could be pinned in place and would be easier to remove.
    Loving the process, thanks Bev

  2. Bev Scott says:

    Hi Leah, loving this process. Just a thought … I have some 'paper piecing paper' that can go through the printer. I think this could be pinned in place and would be easier to remove. I will try it later today and quilt the block 8 that I made this morning.
    Now I am waiting for next months block already! Thanks Bev

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