Blog 220

 

Another Sunday, another Blog! I have been happily making fruit pies in the kitchen whilst the slow cooker does its stuff with a small lump of beef (isn’t it expensive!!) but, whatever I am doing,  in the back of my mind I am formulating what I am going to say in the Blog today. Although my Sunday has been renamed BLOG-day, it doesn’t always just happen on a Sunday morning, it is a continuous process that stretches throughout my week. I now always have a camera in my room when I am working so that I have a lot of raw material (no pun intended!) that I can draw on. Like anything else that works well, it is a form of discipline and it has become second nature to me now. And I know that there are lots of viewers out there watching what goes on because Google send me a monthly analysis of the numbers. So hello and welcome once again, I do this for you.

The Disappearing 4-patch

So here we go. This is one of those speedy and effective methods which rely on precision cutting. It is excellent as a scrap quilt and great for using up some of your stash. I am doing mine in Batiks and Bali’s. How much do you need? Well estimate how big you want it and start from there; the individual block finishes in the quilt at 11”.

 THE QUILT

                               The quilt

 

THE BLOCK

                                       The block

 

THE METHOD

Cut 2 squares at 6 ½” from a light and a dark fabric and sew them together to make a 4 patch (12 ½”). Iron both seams in the same direction.

                                          4-patch

Place the 4-patch onto the cutting board. Make sure you have a sharp blade in your cutter so that the cutting is clean and precise. Place the 1” line on your ruler along the centre seam.

 

                                    Place the ruler

 

Cut along the edge of the ruler without disturbing the fabrics.

 

                                  Cut along the ruler

 Rotate the cutting board (not the block) 90 degrees and repeat the cut.

 

                                    Rotate and cut

 Repeat this twice more until you have cut all around the centre. You will have 9 separate pieces.

 

                                  4 cuts, 9 pieces

 Pick up and rotate the middle strip on the bottom line and replace it so that the light fabric lies next to the dark, and the dark lies next to the light.

                      Rotate the 2-coloured strip

Repeat this for each narrow 2-coloured strip to produce the required pattern.

 

                                     The layout
 

Treat the pieces as a 9-patch and sew the shapes together to make 3 lines.

 

                                        3 lines

 

Then sew the lines together to make the block.

                                 Completed block

And that’s all there is to it! Here are a couple of suggestions for placement. One has the 4 dark squares together.

                                  Darks together

 

The other continues the theme of placing a dark next to a light and vice versa.

                                     Light to dark

Have a go and let me see what you produce! More from me next week.