Now that summer has officially arrived here in the U.S., I am really feeling my Summer version of Debbie Caffrey’s Secret Window mystery quilt! This Simple Pleasures collection by Debbie Beaves for RJR Fabrics is just so refreshing and I’m really liking how the florals interact with the more geometric prints of Crazy for Dots & Stripes, also from RJR Fabrics.
These blocks come together very easily – just be sure that you are attaching the correct units to the correct sides of the four patch. Ask Carolyn how she knows about that! Here are mine:
Block X
Block Y
For the Unit 7’s, I used the alternate technique and foundation pieced mine. I much prefer to foundation piece than cut templates, and find that I am more accurate. If you don’t care for either templates or foundation piecing, you might choose to use the Tri-Recs Tools by Darlene Zimmerman & Joy Hoffman to cut your fabric, as Carolyn did. Our quilt-along hostess, Sandi, has some great photos of how to use this tool at our online quilt-along over at Quilter’s Club of America.
Unit 7
As an added bonus, if you would like to foundation piece your Unit 7’s, click to download this file, QM_SecretWindow_Foundations, with multiple foundations on it – it’s much quicker to print out multiple copies and get to work sewing!
It’s been so much fun seeing how the online quilt-along has been going. Everyone has such different and interesting fabrics and I love to see all of the parts coming together. I can’t wait for Part 3!
How is your Secret Window quilt coming along?
I wish I had those templates a week ago! Oh well, my squares still turned out ok in the end
It was such fun to use the foundation piecing. Can’t wait for the final directions!
Thanks for posting this!
I already finished mine with the tri recs ruler.
Couldn’t wait!
I’m enjoying my first mystery quilt!
I was really happy to be able to borrow the Tri-Recs rulers. I was very skeptical at first but they worked like a charm. I actually planned to paper piece them, but my practice piece using the rulers came out perfect. I was not excited about getting all that paper off, either!!
On the other pieces from this step…I did true the blocs to 6 1/2″. The had a little bit of a bulge on each side after I pressed them. The trued up very nicely with the 1/4″ allowance well preserved. I think it will go together much better now. Can’t wait for the next step!