Giving the extra week was good for some of the participants in that they were able to catch up with all of the blocks. As I have said, you do not have to do all of the blocks. It is perfectly fine to only pick some of them if you want. I have seen some wonderful blocks! Everyone is so creative.
I have a winner of Block 3A is (drum roll please) Mary Steimle again!!! Mary, everyone loves the fabrics you picked! She gets another free pattern from my website. I'm going to run out of patterns to send her if she keeps this up!
Here are the links to vote for Blocks 4A and 4B. I did not get as many entries this time. If you want to send me an image of your block I can still add it. If you sent it to me and it is not included please send it again and I will add it. I will hold off sending the links to my social media sites.
Arizona Block A
Arizona Block B
I have realized that Marti Michell makes template sets that are perfect for my blocks. Her A set for 3" sections and B sets for 4" sections have many of the shapes that I use in my blocks (both work with 12" blocks). I am considering purchasing them for my shop. If you are interested in either set, let me know. These templates will save you from having to make your own and will last a lot longer! Also some of the templates you made for previous blocks will work with these blocks so save yourself from making them again by checking on the ones you have.
This week's block is California. I had a challenge finding a challenging block. Finding an easy one was easy. I finally did find one and did some revisions so it wouldn't be too difficult to piece. (No "y" seams.) It does have a lot of pieces though! Both blocks only need templates for the fussy cut pieces but feel free to use templates for all the pieces if you want.
BLOCK 5A
Here are the fabrics I chose: Focus fabric, light background, medium print, and medium light print.
CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS
You will need to cut (with or without templates):
Fabric 1 Focus Fabric:
*Fussy cut (4) template A.
Fabric 2 Light background:
*(4) template A or (2) 4-7/8" squares cut once diagonally into (4) HST.
*(10) template B or (10) 2-1/2" squares.
Fabric 3 Medium light print:
*(6) template B or (6) 2-1/2" squares.
Fabric 4 Medium print:
*(4) template B or (4) 2-1/2" squares.
BLOCK CONSTRUCTION
1. Sew a Fabric 1 A triangle to a Fabric 2 A triangle. Make (4). Press two to Fabric 1 and two to Fabric 2.
3. Repeat step 2 with two 2-1/2" Fabric 1 squares and two 2-1/2" Fabric 4 squares. Make (2).
4. Layout the four patch squares and half-square triangle squares as illustrated. Be sure to place the triangle seams going in opposite directions where they come together. Sew across. Press seams to the four patches. Then sew the rows together. Press seams towards the outside of the block.
BLOCK 5B
For this block I chose both the light and dark focus fabrics, a medium light, medium dark, and two dark fabrics.
CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS (Ignore the gold triangles in the larger image. I started piecing it and realized I needed to make two small triangles in place of the larger ones. Thus the extra fabric image.)
Fabric 1 Dark focus fabric:
*Fussy cut (4) Template C.
Fabric 2 Light focus fabric.
*Fussy cut (4) Template D.
Fabric 3 Medium light (gold):
*(4) Template A or (4) 2" squares.
*(16) Template B or (8) 2-3/8" squares cut once diagonally into (16) HST.
Fabric 4 Medium dark (green):
*(4) Template D or (2) 3-7/8" squares cut once diagonally into (4) HST.
*(8) Templates B or (4) 2-3/8" squares cut once diagonally into (8) HST.
Fabric 5 Dark 1 (purple):
*(4) Template A or (4) 2" squares.
*(8) Template B or (4) 2-3/8" squares cut once diagonally into (8) HST.
Fabric 6 Dark 2 (black):
*(16) Template B or (8) 2-3/8" squares cut once diagonally into (16) HST.
BLOCK CONSTRUCTION
Center section
1. Sew the four Fabric 1 Template D patches together. Press seams in a clockwise manner.
2. Sew the four Fabric 4 Template D triangles to each side of the center diamond. Sew opposite sides first. Press to Fabric 4.
Left Section 2
3. Sew (1) Fabric 3 Template B, (2) Fabric 5 Template B, and (1) Fabric 4 triangles together. Press towards the last triangle sewn on. Make (4) Left section 2.
Right Section 2
4. Repeat step 3 facing the triangles in the opposite directions as illustrated. Make (4) Right section 2.
Section 3
5. Sew a left and right section 2 to a Fabric 2 Template C. Press to square. Make (4) section 3.
Corner section
6. Sew (1) Fabric 3 Template A, (2) Fabric 5 Template B, and (1) Fabric 5 A patches together as illustrated. Press first seams to the squares. Press the center seam to the dark fabric.
7. Sew a Fabric 3 Template A to each side as illustrated. Press to Fabric 3. Make (4) corner sections.
8. Layout the (4) corner sections, (4) section 3 and center section as illustrated. Sew sections together across. Press top and bottom row seams to section 3 and center seams to section 3. Sew rows together pressing seams to top and bottom rows.
Here are the links to the pdfs of the templates. You need to click download and then save it to a separate folder. Then you can open it with Acrobat Reader. Remember when you print it out be sure there is no scaling. Print at 100%. If you have problems opening any of the links in this blog just let me know.
Templates for Block 5A
Templates for Block 5B
Well it is almost 2:00 A.M. so I think I need to go to sleep! Luckily I don't have to get up early tomorrow! Have fun and please share your blocks with me so I can share them. Also some of you had left comments about yourselves in my last blog. I would love to hear from more of you and I'm sure others would too.
As always, do what you love and love what you do. Thanks for reading. Toby Lischko
