Happy Blockheads Wednesday! This week’s guest designer is Vanessa Christenson of V and Co., whose ombre fabrics have brought color and joy to so many quilty projects! And her block this week, Life of the Party, is the kind of block that uses ombre fabrics to maximum effect.

You can find this week’s pattern here: BH5 – Group 2, Block 17 – Life of the Party by Vanessa Christenson

Follow along with Vanessa!
Instagram: @vchristenson
www.vanessachristenson.com

If you’re new to Blockheads, here are a couple of quick things to know:

• This is a free quilt-along. No sign-ups are required. Just download the pattern and you’re ready to sew!
• The PDF patterns will be posted on the Moda blog and in the official Facebook group every Wednesday by 8:00 AM CDT.
• You can also bookmark this page: Blockheads 5 main page to find a convenient list of all the patterns as they are released.
• If you’d like to sign up for our blog newsletter to get blog posts delivered to your inbox, you can sign up here: Blog Newsletter Sign-Up
• If you want to sew along with a virtual Blockheads community, head over to Facebook and join our official Moda Blockheads Facebook group. Our group is an active and vibrant community of 72,000 quilters and counting! It’s a great place to be inspired and share pictures of your Blockheads progress.
• If Instagram is where you prefer to hang out, be sure to follow us (@modafabrics) and the hashtags #modablockheads and #modablockheads5 to see the latest blocks from our designers and other Blockheads.
• Be sure to get your official Blockheads t-shirts, sweatshirts, tote bags, water bottles, and more from our pop-up shop HERE.

(Looking for a little more information about Blockheads? You can check out the Blockheads 5 archive HERE.)

Something new we’re planning for this round of Blockheads is a weekly video. You can follow along with me as I sew the block of the week and share my tips and tricks and talk about different construction techniques. I’ll post the videos on YouTube and share them here on the blog. You can watch this week’s video below:

We’re making quarter-square triangles this week, so of course I had to bring back out the June Tailor Perfect Half-Square and Quarter-Square Triangles Ruler. It’s such a great all-in-one tool, with easy grooves for quickly marking stitch lines, cutting squares in half, and trimming your half-square and quarter-square triangles – without having to fiddle with finding the center point on your standard block ruler.

This week’s block is also an opportunity to embrace a looser version of a star – rather than deliberately planning the fabric placement to make an obvious star in my blocks, I decided to keep the placement random and go for something more like a faceted gem. I think the finished blocks will still shine and sparkle like stars in my finished Blockheads projects! So which route will you choose when you make your Life of the Party blocks?

Are you ready to see our blocks?

Alison is making a fall version in 12” blocks and a patriotic version in 6” blocks.

And I am making a traditional/repro scrappy fall version and a sweet/cottage-y Americana version in 6” blocks.

Now…off you go to press, cut, and sew! And don’t forget to share your blocks with us in our Facebook group or on Instagram (#modablockheads5)!