Friday, May 17, 2013

A FLOWER BLOCK TUTORIAL (sort of)

 About two years ago Wayne Kollinger blogged about an Easy Way For You To Design A Tessellated Quilt.  I tried a block or two at the time, but really wasn’t as into piecing back then.  You can see my attempts here.  Wayne also talked about this new block and how different it looked when it was repeated or rotated.  I didn’t get it at the time, and put everything away.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Now, two years later when I was cleaning my sewing room, I saw this block sketched on several small pieces of paper.  When I shoved them together (see sketch at top) I came up with a block that looked like a flower and decided to give it a try, not realizing that Wayne had already shown us this block two years ago! 

Sometimes I feel such a dunce, but undaunted I had to make this block.  You can make it too.  I used 2 ½” squares.  Each square was made up of four light solid squares, two dark solid squares, and three ½ square triangles made up of the light and dark fabrics.
This is a diagram for you.  Once you have four of these small blocks made, you then sew the four together to make a 12 ½” unfinished block. 

Here it is, all laid out and ready to be sewn.  You will notice that I cut just one piece of fabric instead of three white background squares on the outside.  However, the rest is made up of the 2 1/2" squares.
Now the block is together.
Put a circle of fabric in the center and you have a big flower.  I can just see a multitude of these blocks spreading across a bed, can’t you?  Give it a try.  

Wayne is always doing interesting things.  The other day he paired the blocks Shoo Fly and Rolling Stone.  Or check out this one.

Wayne, thanks for your very interesting blog and challenging us to stretch our skills. 

ON ANOTHER NOTEBloomin Workshop has a tutorial for a random Sampler Gal Wagon Wheel.

PS:  I'm linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict today.  Check it out.

Until next time,

Stay Calm! Stay Kind! Stay Positive!
Caroll

5 comments:

  1. That is such a neat technique! I'll have to try that too. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Caroll

    Thanks for the shout out.

    I like the flower.

    The fact that you and I came up with the same idea separately just shows that great minds think alike. Newton and Leibniz both discovered Calculus. Mobius and Listing both discovered the Mobius strip. History is full of this sort of thing. Now we can add our names to the list.

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  3. What a fun tutorial! Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Caroll, that's really nice! Well done! I like the block and you executed it well!

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