I’ve been calling this the Fair Isle block in my mind, because it makes me think of Fair Isle knitting patterns: two-color patterns of squares in a repeating pattern (of course, this block would just be one repeat of the pattern). I really love the geometric look of Fair Isle patterns, and how the pattern in each row repeats, but then each row is unique from all the other rows.

To add to the “squareness” of my Fair Isle block pattern, I used a new fabric that is printed with squares. My apologies for whoever I got the fabric from – I just can’t remember now where it came from. Someone may have handed it to me at a guild meeting or a retreat. It’s a great color for this quilt.

I specially chose this block to do next because it called for eight 1″ red squares, and I accidentally had nine extra 1″ red squares due to a snafu on a previous block. Now I’m only wasting one red square instead of nine.

The pieces of this block are all simple strips and squares, so it was pretty straightforward to cut out and assemble. It was really just a matter of laying out all the pieces in the correct order and then sewing on strips around the edge of the center square. The trickiest part was trying to line up the squares printed on the fabric where two green pieces came together. You can see I was more successful in some seams than others.

I actually finished this block over three weeks ago, and haven’t managed to do any quilting since. As I write this, novel coronavirus is sweeping the nation (the whole globe, really). Our guild’s annual quilt show has been cancelled, and we’re not sure about the fate of next month’s retreat. The company I work for is having everyone work from home if at all possible. Our school district is closed tomorrow while they sanitize the transportation center after an office worker tested positive. All my kid’s robotics team events are on hold for at least the rest of the month.

The Fair Isle block seems especially appropriate, since true Fair Isle knitting is done on a remote island off the cost of Scotland (kind of like how it’s not truly champagne unless it’s made in that region of France). With everything going on in the world right now, hibernating on a remote island where they specialize in crafts is sounding pretty darn good to me.