Today I’m excited to share the release of Pinnacle, the block I designed for OLFA’s 40th Anniversary Quilt Along! It’s been quiet over here on this blog lately, with summer adventures and family time filling my days. Now that school has begun, perhaps that will provide some space to write here more often. I’m hoping that this space is like an old friend–there may not be posts every week, but when there is one, it’s just like jumping back into the conversation, comfortable as ever.

Let’s start with this fun block! When OLFA invited me to design a block for a Quilt Along for their 40th Anniversary of inventing the rotary cutter, I jumped at the opportunity to help celebrate with this great company. Just think about it—40 years ago, quilters were tracing out quilt pieces using templates and pencil, and cutting out each square with scissors!! The rotary cutter is such a key invention in helping with accuracy and speed of cuts, and I’m grateful for OLFA’s giant contribution to the quilting world. I also happen to love using OLFA products and have come to trust the quality and reliability of their rotary cutters, rulers, mats, and other tools. I also kinda LOVE the multitude of colors they offer for their Splash rotary cutters! OLFA certainly makes my life easier, both by their reliably sharp tools and the ready-to-roll photo props!

OLFA requested that we create a block with OLFA rotary colors (at the time, the colors included yellow, pink, aqua, and purple), with celebrating 40 years as a focus. I chose to name my block Pinnacle, combining a celebration of a high point of achievement for OLFA—40 years since the invention of the world’s first rotary cutter!! and my love of the sharp points that result from foundation paper piecing, with an added nod to the mountains upon which I love to hike. A fairly simple foundation template is jazzed up with the use of a pre-sewn panel of fabric as the peaks, creating a fun block that will look slightly different every time you sew it.

I decided to use the purple shade and chose a small gradient of fabric in the magenta-purple fade I love so much. I chose three Alison Glass prints, which most likely comes as no surprise! The darkest purple/magenta is SunPrint 2018 Compass in Jam, the middle tone is an old one from Alison Glass SunPrint 2014 called Bike Path (I believe it was also printed as part of her Lucky Penny fabric line, so googling or Etsy searches may find some left!), and the lightest is a fabric from her Insignia 2019 fabric line. I love the way the bike path dots add fun tracks of snow down these pinnacle points! Paired with a white solid background, this block is simple and graphic and provides lots of fun for experimentation.

This block includes a fun twist to foundation paper piecing, since you premake a panel of fabric that is used to to fill each mountainous space. This means that every block you make will be slightly different, which to me equals fun! To find the instructions for this block, head over to the OLFA Quilt Along Gallery HERE.

I also was honored to be asked to photograph the full OLFA 40th Anniversary quilt, where you can see how the finished Sew Along Quilt may look. Isn’t it fun!? Do you see my block?

Be sure to check out the OLFA Quilt Along Gallery page as well as the OLFA blog to find out more about this sew along, and please tag me @nightquilter on social media if you make this block–I’d love to see yours!