In this triangle block, I’m using one of three new green fabrics I found at the scrap extravaganza!

Since I worked on this block on the first day of fall retreat, I was able to get advice from my fellow quilters at retreat on which fabric to use.

The one on the right felt a little too yellowy to me, and the center one, while it had great colors, was a little too in-your-face for the block. And we all liked that the one on the left had little bits of red throughout that tied it into the red background fabric.

As a bonus, with such big pieces, I was able to fussy cut some excellent butterfly and flower vignettes.

For a block with so few pieces (nine), it sure had a lot of Y-seams (four). But there are Y-seams and then there are Y-seams. I followed a plan that minimized the really alarmingly acute Y-seam angles.

First, I stitched the two red pieces around the top diamond – no Y-seams there!

Then I started stitching some of the pieces into diagonal-ish rows, including attaching the righthand (from the back) red piece to the bottom of the top diamond, the lefthand red piece to the top of the center diamond, and the lefthand red piece to the bottom triangle:

Technically there was a Y-seam in that top section, but one arm of the Y was about two stitches long, so it barely counts!

For my next trick, I stitched the segment with the top diamond to the segment with the center diamond. This was the first time I had a Y-seam that counted (plus another tiny two-stitcher that didn’t). The countable y-seam had a pretty shallow angle though:

Next, I stitched the last loose red piece to the top and center segment – again, no Y-seams:

The last step was to stitch the two remaining segments together. This had a Y-seam, but it was very shallow, so no big deal.

For a block where half the seams were Y-seams, it actually went pretty smoothly. And the block design really showcases the excellent fabric. Definitely a successful first day at retreat. On to the next block!