Puzzle Quilt Block 4

This month’s block is London Roads which has a couple of new units – no more half-square triangles! You can download the instructions which have some more colouring ideas and two blocks for you to design your own colourings.

These are the two blocks I made in my first quilt.

As you can see – no half-square triangles, but there are quarter-square triangles and a strip pieced unit. Because the blocks are 12 inches (finished size) each unit is 4 inches and as your Primary School maths will tell you 4 does not divide into 3 very easily! For the strip-pieced units therefore I have given you measurements to the nearest eighth. Once you have sliced your stripped band into four and half inch lengths you will need to trim a little bit off each long side (probably slightly less than a sixteenth) to make it square. Apologies for the colour choice in the first photo – wasn’t thinking about green fabric on a green board – but if you squint you can see where I have placed the ruler to trim a roughly equal amount off each outer long edge.

As ever I have had a play in EQ and come up with a few other colours you could make your blocks

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Tile Tuesday

Once more we link through to our sister site and another Tile Tuesday. This time is a rather lovely (if overgrown) path in Eastbourne.

We’ve turned this into a runner pattern which is available from our Payhip shop – although we have simplified the border design otherwise it overwhelmed the centre. Hopefully a full-size quilt pattern including the original border will be available soon (Chris is working on it!)

April Doodles

We’re a few days late but over on our sister site our April Doodle is Fools Square. It is quite an easy block to make by hand or machine with lots of possibilities.

You can download the rotary cutting instructions or the the templates to make a 10 inch block. To stitch it by machine we have added in a couple of extra seam lines to make things easier (no Y seams!) and rather than cutting triangles for one of the units we suggest you cut squares and rectangles and use the ‘stitch and flip’ method which is outlined (with measurements) here along with general piecing guidelines. And if you just want to sit and design your own, or do some colouring-in you can download a ‘quilt to colour’.

Puzzle Quilt Block 3 extra

I’ve made my two Mosaic no 13 blocks in my reds and jades with white as a background.

I have written how I made them – pressing instructions and other hints and tips – over on the UKQU website as I am sharing this design with them via my blog. If you are struggling or need a break and some quilty reading then start with my blog (as I’ve given you the link) but then try exploring the rest of the site.

While I was writing that up I started playing with the block in EQ and ‘making’ quilts using just this Mosaic 13 block in various colour combinations , starting with it straight set and then with added sashing.

I then turned the blocks on point with plain blocks between them.

And then, back to straight set and combining different colour combinations.

If you fancy designing a quilt with this block, or just a bit of downtime with the colouring pencils you can download a Quilt to Colour. I’ve done it straight set with sashing but you can print it out several times, cut it up and re-arrange the blocks however you want.

The block for Month 4 will be here before we know it – on April17th.

Puzzle Quilt Block 3

This month’s block is called Mosaic number 13 – not exactly an inspiring name is it?! Like the last two blocks it is based on a 4-patch grid and is made from (yet more) half-square triangles, no squares this time – just lots of triangles. Think how good you’ll be at making these triangles by the time you have finished!

Download the instructions for Mosaic #13 and choose your fabrics – purple and orange perhaps . . .

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or pinks and greens –

You’ll find lots more colouring ideas in the worksheet.

Tile Tuesday

Over on our chrisandbarbaraquilts blog for Tile Tuesday we have posted a lovely Minton doorstep from a local Georgian house. We keep saying we will make a runner from this design, but so far . . . !

We have managed to write a pattern for it though and play around with some colours in EQ. You can find the pattern here in the Meadowside shop if you fancy having a go and putting us to shame.

Puzzle Quilt extra

Now you have made four quilt blocks you may be wondering about this quilt-as-you-go technique I promised back before we got started.  It’s not for everyone but it does get over the problem of quilt wrestling – trying to get a large quilt under a small machine. Quilting a quilt of this size is perfectly possible with a standard domestic machine (and a large table) but it can be exhausting and modern waddings, especially cotton ones, are heavy and a little stiff to handle – the old ‘puffy’ polyester wadding which was all we could get back in the olden days was much more forgiving when it came to being scrunched up and wedged under a machine and was very much lighter.

You have choices for quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) – you can quilt each individual block and then join them together, or you can join blocks in groups or rows and then quilt those before joining them. Borders too can be done QAYG – you would quilt each border length separately and then join them onto the finished quilt; alternatively, if you have planned out your block placements beforehand, you can make sure the blocks on the outer edges of the quilt have sufficient wadding and backing around them to accommodate the borders which can then be added as normal and quilted afterwards.

You can start to prepare for QAYG by adding a sashing (or coping) strip around each block now. These can be trimmed once all the blocks are complete to ensure your blocks are all the same size and fit together easily, which is why they are sometimes called ‘coping strips’ – they ‘cope’ with those discrepancies in size.

 I suggest you cut those strips no less than 1.5 inches wide which will give you a 1 inch finished border around each block and will mean your completed sashing in the quilt will be 2 inches wide. You can add those strips Log Cabin style – sew a strip to the top, then to the adjacent side, then the bottom and then the final side –

Or Courthouse Steps style – sew strips to the sides of the block and then to the top and bottom

Or you could add cornerstones to your sashing strips which will give you the opportunity for a little more design play perhaps – but you will need to be accurate as those resulting 4-patches will need to line up reasonably well.

The next pair of blocks will be here on March 13th. The actual quilting discussion will happen once all the blocks are complete.

Puzzle Quilt block 2

This month’s block is Schoolgirl’s Puzzle. This is a 4-patch block like last month’s Clay’s Choice and will finish at 12 inches. Lots of Half-Square Triangle units again.

This is the standard greyscale colouring of Schoolgirl’s Choice –

These are the two blocks from the original quilt.

These are the two blocks I’ve made this time around

And here’s another couple of colour ideas.

There are plenty more ideas in the worksheet – I’ve just used two layouts here.

Tile Tuesdays

A bit late (its nearly Wednesday) but we thought we ought to point you in the direction of our posts over on our sister blog about a couple of Minton tiled floors we rather liked.

If you look closely you can see they are quite similar in design – the colouring makes all the difference, just as it does in our Puzzle Quilt blocks, and so with the magic of EQ –

We do have a pattern for this second quilt in our Meadowside Designs shop and a quilt made from it.

Block Two of the Puzzle Quilt will be here on Saturday.

Tile Tuesdays

Our Tile Tuesday post on our sister site last week featured a tile from the Instagram account of David Wade (dav.d_wade) and we took a small portion of that and turned it into a quilt block and then redrew it so it would be easier to piece.

But what would it look like in a quilt? Here’s a few ideas –

And in colour?

or turn the blocks around and adjust the colouring

If you would like to make your own Morocco tile quilt you can download the templates for a 12 block here. For those who prefer rotary cutting – the squares are 2 1/2 inches cut and the triangles are cut from 2 7/8 inch squares but the centre diamond will need templates!