The Homemade Stripes
I thought that the “homemade stripes” in this block (sewing together narrow strips in alternating colors) made it the perfect block to do right now. I’m psyching myself up for my […]
The Pea Pods
When I first saw this quilt block last year, I wondered how I was going to cram so much seam allowance under those narrow pea pod shapes when I appliquéd […]
The Angler
Don’t let the title fool you; this blog post is not about fishing. Instead, it’s about one woman’s very real struggle to cut out accurate 45-degree parallelograms. I was all pleased […]
The Travel Kit
One of the great aspects of hand piecing is how portable it is. A single block doesn’t take up that much space, and you don’t need any bulky equipment (or […]
The Big Four-O
This is the 40th block I’ve completed on this project, and I feel like my actual fortieth birthday was less of a momentous milestone than the quilt block. Forty appears […]
The Bias
Cutting out the pieces is one of my least favorite parts of the quiltmaking process, so I generally just slavishly follow the cutting directions and try to get it over […]
The Magic Trick
I thought I’d follow up last week’s Y-seamed block with another, turning it into a two-block arty series. These two blocks have a lot in common, featuring diamonds, inset (“Y”) seams, […]
The Whys
The blog post for this block was originally going to be about the Y-seams required in the block construction. For those that are not in the know, a Y-seam is just […]
The Victorian Camo
The title of this blog post comes from my intense dislike of the fabric in this block. It’s done in traditional camouflage fabric colors, but instead of random splotches, it […]
The Halfpenny
This is the last of my Versatile Nine Patch series of blocks, and definitely the most complicated. In theory, it is just a nine patch tilted 45 degrees to be […]
The Versatile Nine-Patch
When I started this blog, I’d planned to do some posts for a single block and some for a “series” of blocks (it sounds so arty, having a series of […]
The Reverse Polarity
I couldn’t resist the title for this blog post, since the block prominently features a plus sign, and I’d been feeling a little negative about this project when I began this […]