I was working at the quilt shop the other day and picked up a book on “modern” quilts. I don’t really understand these modern quilts because many of the designs are boringly simple and the workmanship is extremely poor. This book though, featured quilts made from solid fabrics and they were the most boring yet. Using beautiful fabric is what encourages me to make quilt after quilt. That day I was cutting pieces for my latest scrap quilt and was really enjoying matching the prints to make interesting blocks. I LOVE fabric and love to see how prints and colors play together. Using all solids takes away much of the fun. This is going to be a great quilt. It’s a churn dash design with a nine-patch center. Fortunately I was able to dig in my scrap drawers and find the perfect pieces for these blocks. I really like having my scraps pre-cut. I am more apt to use them and it makes it very easy to coordinate blocks.
For the nine-patches I started with 5” squares. I matched two squares and cut nine 1-1/2” squares from each one. From that I was able to get two nine-patch blocks like these:
For the churn dash block I used 3-1/2” strips. From easy strip I cut four 1-1/2 x 3-1/2” rectangles then cut the strip down to 2-1/2” wide and cut four half-square triangles using the Omni 96 ruler.
The picture shows the units cut from two strips. These pieces will make one block! This will be a great scrap quilt when it’s finished. Now if I could just manage a little more time in the sewing room!
