Piece & Quilt Sampler Tips for August

It’s time to share my Piece & Quilt Sampler Tips for August! This is a quilt along that started in April and is hosted by Fat Quarter Shop. It uses the book, Celebrate with Quilts, by Susan Ache and Lissa Alexander. Each month they assign several blocks to make and by the end of February, 2025, you’ll have a beautiful quilt.

You can join the quilt along at any time. You’ll need the book which has all of the instructions and you can download the schedule here. Even if you’re not participating, you’ll find some useful tips in today’s blog post.

Piecing Tips for August

NOTE: I won’t be giving specific measurements or cutting instructions. You need to purchase the book to get the full instructions if you want to follow along.

Always start by pressing and starching your fabrics. This makes the whole piecing process easier and more accurate.

Choosing fabric

We’re getting to the point in the quilt along where it’s a good idea to lay out the blocks that you’ve made so far before deciding on the fabric to use for the next set of blocks. This will help prevent pockets of the same color used in one area. I should have done this sooner, but I can still move things around to get a balanced color placement.

Once you get the blocks made for August, you’ll be able to join the blocks together to form the top section of the quilt top!

The fabric I’m using for my quilt is from the Starberry collection by Corey Yoder for Moda Fabrics. It’s a beautiful range of Christmas inspired colors that I absolutely love!

Avenue Blocks

We’re making four Avenue blocks and they’ll eventually get sewn together to create one big block. This is a great time to use strip piecing to make the units. That means instead of cutting each square or rectangle individually, you cut them into strips and leave them as strips without subcutting into the final size. Then you can sew the strips together and then subcut. The 4-patches can be made by stacking the strip sets right sides together before subcutting. This way they are ready to be sewn into 4-patches.

The center of each of my Avenue blocks has a plaid square from the coordinating print fabric. It fits perfectly inside these blocks. I’ve arranged the blocks as shown in the second photo below and will sew them together soon.

Maple Leaf Block

I had a lot of fun playing with color placement for the Maple Leaf block. I used the same fabric for the flying geese and the adjacent rectangles. This gave the block a totally different look. You can see the change by looking at the circled image from the book below.

I fussy cut the center of this block using the Fussy Cut Ruler by Quilt in a Day. It makes it so easy to see where to center the square.

I made the flying geese units 4-at-a-time. I also oversized them so I can trim them perfectly (using my favorite Bloc Loc rulers.) You can download my cutting instructions for oversized flying geese here and you can find out how I reduce bulk in flying geese here.

Texas Puzzle Block

There are two Texas Puzzle blocks to make this month, each a different size. These are very easy blocks and another good time to play with color placement and value. In the larger block, I chose bright red for the HST units and a light fabric for the sashing rectangles. I made the smaller block with the reverse color value placement. They eye is drawn to the darker fabric in each one.

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That’s the assignment for August! I hope those tips were helpful. You can find more information about the quilt along at Fat Quarter Shop’s blog here. Remember to post a photo of your blocks on Instagram and use the hashtag  #piecequiltsamplerqal so we can all see. Plus, this will enter you in the giveaway each month!

• Tips for the June blocks can be found here.
• Tips for the May blocks can be found here.
• Tips for the April blocks can be found here.