I’ve mentioned a few times that we have more than 30 designers participating in Blockheads 5 this year, including a handful of new designers. Some of the new designers are actually new fabric designers; some of them -- like this week’s guest designer, April Rosenthal -- are familiar Moda designers joining Blockheads for the first time. Either way, it’s always exciting to welcome a new Blockhead to the bunch!

You can find this week’s pattern here: BH5 – Group 2, Block 3 – Shimmer Star by April Rosenthal

Follow along with April!
Instagram: @aprilrosenthal
https://aprilrosenthal.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 71,000 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.)

Be sure to head over to April's blog today to see more pics of her Shimmer Star blocks! You can find her blog post here: April Rosenthal's Shimmer Star blog post

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:

Did you notice that my block looks different in the beginning of the video than it does at the end? That’s right – I filmed the different steps for making Shimmer Star as I sewed my block, then I trimmed my finished block and filmed the opening sequence of the video…and only THEN did I notice that I’d sewn my corner units in the wrong direction when I was assembling my block rows! Argh.

I decided to leave my “oops” in the video as a cautionary tale. If you are like me and have chosen to use a LIGHTER fabric for pieces A and H, make extra sure that you don’t automatically orient those corner units according to the black-and-white diagram on the pattern. That’s what I did – I confused my darker B squares with the A squares in the pattern diagram. Whoops! So I unpicked nearly the entire block, reoriented my corner squares, and wrapped up the video. The picture of my block below has the correct fabric placement!

The pattern instructions this week will yield slightly oversized QSTs so that you can trim them down and get perfectly sized units for your block. If you are unsure about how to trim down QSTs, be sure to watch the video! I specifically talk about how to line up your ruler so that your QSTs are perfectly squared up.

Are you ready to see our blocks?

Lissa is using Nantucket Summer for her blocks.

Alison is making a fall version in 12” blocks and a patriotic version in 6” blocks. I just love the fabrics she chose for her blocks this week!

And I am making a traditional/repro scrappy fall version and a sweet/cottage-y Americana version in 6” blocks. Thanks to my sewing mistake, I fell a bit behind and only got the one block made this week. I have some catching up to do!

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)!