Happy New Year, Blockheads! I hope everyone enjoyed our little break over the holidays and is feeling rested and ready to sew!

You can find this week’s pattern here: BH5 – Group 2, Block 1 – Dream Big by Sherri McConnell

Follow along with Sherri!
Instagram: @aquiltinglife
https://www.aquiltinglife.com/blog/

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 70,000 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 Sherri’s blog as soon as you’ve downloaded the pattern! Sherri is sharing her tips and tricks for fabric placement and construction options for Dream Big. She has so much great information in her post – you don’t want to miss out on that! You can find Sherri’s blog here: A Quilting Life 

It’s exciting to be starting this new round of Blockheads blocks right at the start of the new year! If you enjoyed the first round of Blockheads, you’re definitely going to love this next batch of blocks. We’ve got more designers, more stars, and yes, more applique and foundation paper piecing coming your way! (But not today.) I have the unfair advantage of knowing what’s in store for y’all, and I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised by the new designers who are joining us for this round, as well as the incredible array of designs and techniques that you’ll get to experience in this sew-along.

For the first week of Blockheads 5 – Part 2, however, Sherri McConnell is starting us off with a design that has familiar elements but oh-so-many design opportunities. I think that those of you who love using the coloring blocks to decide color placement are probably going to want to fill out the entire page of coloring blocks!

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:

In this week’s video, I walk you through the four-at-a-time/no-waste flying geese method that we use in our Blockheads pattern. However, if you prefer to use the stitch-and-flip method for your flying geese, here are the cutting measurements:

For 6” finished blocks:

D: (4) 1 1/2” x 2 1/2” rectangles
E: (8) 1 1/2” squares
F: (4) 1 1/2” x 2 1/2” rectangles
G: (8) 1 1/2” squares

For 12” finished blocks:

D: (4) 2 1/2” x 4 1/2” rectangles
E: (8) 2 1/2” squares
F: (4) 2 1/2” x 4 1/2” rectangles
G: (8) 2 1/2” squares

Ready to see our blocks?

Alison is making a scrappy fall/Halloween version with 12” blocks and a scrappy patriotic version with 6” blocks.

Lissa is going to combine all of her Blockheads blocks from both groups, so she’s continuing to use Shoreline, Nantucket Summer, and a few other neutrals for good measure.

And I had the exact same idea as Alison, except I’m only doing 6” blocks! I’m going more traditional/reproduction with my fall version and more sweet/cottage-y Americana with my patriotic version.

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)!