I debated with myself at great length over how to assemble this one. It seems like I spent more time deciding what to do than actually doing it.

There are two main approaches to this kind of block: either sew the straight seams first, or sew the curved seams first. Either way, I needed to be very careful to line up both the straight and curved seams or the finished block would look weird.

I’d tried the straight-seams-first method on Block C5 and it went okay, but I’d also tried that method on Block G5, where things went so off the rails that I had to switch to appliqué partway through the block.

Not wanting to go off the rails again, I ended up doing the curved-seams-first method on this new block, just like I did on Block G1.

The theory was that all the tricky seam alignment would happen while stitching straight seams, rather than while I was distracted with the trickier curvy seams. This ended up being just the right approach for me.

Even the marking was pretty easy, using a technique I’d come up with while stitching Block B3 where, after cutting out the fabric pieces, I cut off the curved part of the seam allowance on the pattern so I could more easily mark the curved stitching lines:

Once the curved seams were sewn together, this was basically just a pinwheel block. All I had to do was stitch the eight triangle units together to make a pinwheel design.

At first I was surprised this block was marked as only beginner difficulty, but it was not so difficult once I’d chosen the correct approach.

The good news is, I’m pretty sure this is the last block I have left with curved piecing (there are a couple of triangle blocks with curved pieces, but I think I can get away with doing appliqué on those). So, no more curved-seam conundrums to face on this project. On to the next block!