This month’s block is brought to you by autoclaves! An autoclave is vessel that uses pressure and heat to treat the product inside it. In the airplane industry, we use composite to make airplane parts, and built-up composite needs to be cured before it gets its strength. The 777X airplane has the largest composite wings in the world, so Boeing needs the largest autoclave by volume in the world in order to cure the parts. The autoclave is so large it had to be built on site, and then moved over into the Composite Wing Center. The following article is about the move, and then I’ve also given you a link for a short video on the Boeing Composite Wing Center autoclaves.

http://www.boeing.com/company/about-bca/washington/first-777x-autoclave-busts-a-move-to-the-future-at-everett-site-09-08-2015.page

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2kUosgZmxU

If you find yourself in Everett and take a drive on Perimeter Road around the Boeing factory, you can see a second autoclave being built on site.

This block is inspired by what I see on a daily basis, large tools going in and out of the autoclave. Now onto sewing!

Materials:

(1) 16” x 16” (ish) piece of batting

(1)16” x 16” (ish) backing fabric

From your background fabric, cut:

(piece A)  3.5” x 3.5″

(piece B)  8.5” x 6.75”

(piece C)  3.75” x 16”

From Accent Fabric A, cut:

(piece D) 12.75” x 9.75”

From Accent Fabric B, cut:

(piece E) 4.75” x 6.75”

Sewing:

Arrange the fabric pieces onto your table like the picture below. This will help keep track of the pieces.

Draw a line from corner to corner of the wrong side of the A piece. Line it up in the top right corner of the D piece, right sides together.

Sew along the line. Trim the excess corner part, leaving ¼” behind as seam allowance.

Flip the background piece, and press.

Sew pieces B and E together on the short edge of piece B. Then sew the A-D piece to B-E. Sew piece C along the top. Use the picture below to make sure you’re sewing the right pieces together.

Baste the backing, batting and completed top together, and quilt.

That’s all for this month. Next month we’re going to talk about tooling! You can use the hashtags #SeaMQGBOM2018 and #ASaMQuilt to show off your work to everyone else. Please let me know if you have any questions! You can send me an email at seattlemodernquiltguild @ gmail . com or message me on instagram @itskimsinsta.