Oh Fudge! Love Letters Tutorial

Looking for more Oh Fudge ideas? 

Debby Kratovil has a sweet project for you! Here she is!

Chocolate is the way to THIS woman's heart! Let me tell you why this Oh Fudge Collection by Maria Kalinowski for Kanvas is better than flowers (we are close to Valentine's Day, you know).

Stack of 10" Oh Fudge squares - yum, yum!

What could be better than having your fill of chocolate and not gaining one pound? Now to me, that's living! I was inspired to use this fabric line to go with some letters I made LAST Valentine's Day using a stack of luscious reds from Benartex.

Group of red fabrics from a variety of Benartex collections

 And the letters:

Red letters mixed up; can you figure out what I'm trying to say?

And then last week I shared how I appliqued the letters to plain white background HERE using freezer paper. Check it out.

Let's see where I went with this awesome Oh Fudge fabric. The blocks are rectangles (don't ask me why), finishing to 5" x 7".

I cut strips of 6 fabrics, 7" x 10".

6 yummy squares of chocolate delights

I had to measure-guess the dimensions so I could set the blocks on a tilt. This is the same technique I used with another Benartex collection (Fowl Play) a year ago. See it HERE (you will love it!)

I used my own Arrowheads Template for half-rectangles. This is the same angle as used in the Tri-Recs Tool set (my EZ Wrights by Darlene Zimmerman). You probably have one of those in your sewing room! There is a link for a pdf pattern with the correct angle on the Fowl Play post, but it's not quite tall enough. Just extend the angled side up the 7" height. Or go look for your Tri-Recs tool in your sewing room!

7" x 10" strips cut using my version of a Tri-Recs tool ( the Recs one)

These are cut from a 7" x 10" strip:

Four half-rectangle triangles cut

I pulled the letters L O V E for another quilt (you can see a sneak peek on my blog). This is what I have left and I added a heart (actually two).

Remaining letters with an extra heart

Then I added a set of 4 triangles to the sides. Here they are before sewing:

Aligning the triangles for a RIGHT tilt

And aligning the triangles for a LEFT tilt:

Aligning triangles for a left tilt

Now let's talk about WHY I didn't just cut fabric Willy-Nilly and disregard the straight of grain. ARE YOU KIDDING? Cutting triangles this way ASSURES that the sides of the block are NOT on the bias.

Here they are sewn.

Triangles sewn; now ready for trimming

Now to trim the sides, leaving a 1/4" seam:

Trim, leaving 1/4" seam around all sides

I put them all together but didn't have the perfect sashing. But what do you think so far? Pretty sweet, wouldn't you say?

Find the tutorial that has a pdf for the letters I used here.

Head over to Debby's blog for a peek at the LOVE quilt she made with the remaining letters and a random collection of Benartex red prints, plus a chance to enter a giveaway for a stack of 10" Oh Fudge squares.