W is for Wagon Tracks

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm sewing a patchwork block for each letter of the alphabet. Each day I will share that block and a little about the block and direct you to where you can find a tutorial for that block on the Web.

The pattern for today is Wagon Tracks and can be found here on Quilter's Cache. Its a traditional block that isn't really that special as an individual block

However when you see a whole quilt made from the block it really comes into its own. Its rather striking I think you will agree

Victoria's Star

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm sewing a patchwork block for each letter of the alphabet. Each day I will share that block and a little about the block and direct you to where you can find a tutorial for that block on the Web.

Victoria's Stars is today's block and can be found here on Quilter's Cache. It is an original paper pieced design by Marcia Hohn. Its really very dramatic and I loved how my block turned out.

The illustration on the Website of a whole quilt made from the block was gorgeous with the interlocking stars coming through in a secondary pattern. I am not sure I would be tempted to make it though as a whole paper pieced quilt would involve a lot of work removing the paper. I have made one paper pieced quilt and believe me it was a LOT of work getting all those little bits of paper out. Still ... the dramatic result just might be worth it

U is for Union Squares

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm sewing a patchwork block for each letter of the alphabet. Each day I will share that block and a little about the block and direct you to where you can find a tutorial for that block on the Web.

Today's block is Union Squares that can be found here on Quilter's Cache. It is another traditional block that goes by a number of other names including An Effective Square, Four Crowns, Union as well as Union Squares. It consists of multiple half square, quarter square and square units. It can be sewn with flying geese instead.

It is a popular block for use in making Christmas themed items such as table runners because of the star nature of the block but it is dependent on the colour choices on the whole. 

T is for Tennessee

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm sewing a patchwork block for each letter of the alphabet. Each day I will share that block and a little about the block and direct you to where you can find a tutorial for that block on the Web.

I got these blocks made in January so as to be ahead of the game come the challenge. Originally I was just going to make 8 or 9 but got on a roll and boom.. they were all done. I made one, took a picture, put it up on the design wall with the others, in order. Usually I would choose them from the list of blocks that I had sorted through and selected back in 2016 when I first decided that I would do this for the blog challenge this year. But sometimes I would go back to Quilter's Cache and check out some other blocks and sometimes select one of those. And sometimes I wouldn't copy the one that I chose to my list. 

That is what happened with this block. And when I came to write the blog I couldn't find the name of it. I tried to go through the list of blocks under T on Quilter's Cache but I couldn't see it. I decided that I must have gotten out of order, gotten confused and skipped T and made either 2 S blocks or 2 U blocks but I couldn't find it there either. 

Finally I went to my Brain's Trust ie my Twilter Group on Facebook and lamented my problem there, along with a photo and Vicki, From the blog and podcast My Creative Corner 3 tracked it down on Quilter's Cache. It does indeed start with T. In my panic I must have skipped over that block and not checked it out. Thank you so much Vicki!

So here it is Tennessee, which can be found on Quilter's Cache here (it really can even if I couldn't see for looking). Its  traditional block and is described as a great stash busting block as the whole block is made up of half square triangles, one side common and the others of varying colours and with different coloured squares in 2 corners. Completely scrappy and totally gorgeous.

I loved the pictures and diagrams I saw on Quilter's Cache of a whole quilt made from the block - some awesome secondary patterns developing and a wonderful block for using up scraps. 

Today is the 20th day of the challenge and T sees the completion of the 4th row of the A to Z quilt. Here is what we have so far

S is for Sailboat

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm sewing a patchwork block for each letter of the alphabet. Each day I will share that block and a little about the block and direct you to where you can find a tutorial for that block on the Web.

Sailboat is another pattern from Quilter's Cache and can be found here It is listed as a traditional pattern and an internet search turned up a lot of patterns called Sailboat, or a variation of it. And there were lots of different ones. I didn't see the version from Quilter's Cache turn up else where but there were a number of similar themed ones. The Quilter's Cache version was an "on point" version. 

This was the more common version to be found

or variations of it such as this one

All of the version used a combination of half square triangles and squares to complete the design.

I wasn't overly happy with the way mine turned out... it was very bland and doesn't show up well in the photograph which was a bit washed out.

The version shown on Quilter's Cache was very dramatic when put together in a table runner and would be very striking in a whole quilt

R is for Red Cross

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm sewing a patchwork block for each letter of the alphabet. Each day I will share that block and a little about the block and direct you to where you can find a tutorial for that block on the Web.

Red Cross is a traditional quilt block, which has a number of variations on the same theme. There are also a lot of blocks that are called Red Cross which are very different from each other. Being the name of a famous organisation a number of blocks have been named in its honour (I presume). They are usually self descriptive, ie a block that has a red cross in it! The pattern I used came from Quilters Cache here .

I found one very similar to it on Jenny Beyer's website here. It used mitred corners in it (I avoid this particular technique as I haven't really mastered it)

This is mine. Just to be a rebel I didn't make it in red!

The whole quilt made from the red cross quilt block looked really boring to me. The overall design  achieved could have been as easily achieved by cutting strips and squares. I thought it was nothing and certainly won't be going onto my must do list 

Q is for Quatrefoils

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm sewing a patchwork block for each letter of the alphabet. Each day I will share that block and a little about the block and direct you to where you can find a tutorial for that block on the Web.

I hadn't heard of this block before choosing it for this challenge however it is marked in the Quilters Cache as being a traditional block and when doing a web search I found a number of articles about it and a YouTube video on making it. I found someone's pinterest board on the block here.  

The pattern for this block can be found on Quillter's Cache here The pattern is for a 9" block but I wanted a 12" block so increased the sizes of the units I cut. Instead of 2" squares I cut 2.5" and instead of 3.5" squares I cut 4.5" squares.

This is the youtube video for making the block.

Here's a diagram of a  quilt made using the quatrefoil block