Fun blocks

This is actually my first finish of the year! (That was not a UFO!)

Well the blocks I was making entitled "fun blocks" was just a disguise.  It was really a quilt I was making for my father in law.

He is a pastor so I decided to give all his blocks a biblical theme.

left to right, top to bottom : Joseph's coat, walls of jericho, storm at sea, crown of thorns, greek cross, crown & crown, carpenters wheel, palm leaves, garden of eden, devils puzzle, children of Isreal and Jacobs ladder.

To quilt it I just did a meander, I had thought about doing something different for each block, but I do not feel confident enough in my quilting to do that.  Although I did draw "lines" in the crosses to make it look like wood.

I believe he enjoyed it :) Now I only need to make a quilt for MY dad.  Making quilts for men are SO tricky!

I am linking up to Richard & Tanya's link a finish Friday.

Walls of Jericho

If I were to do this one again I would probably see about doing it with strip sets (at least for part of the triangles)

Cross & crown

I love this block, its name, how it looks.  I couldn't decide if I wanted red on white or white on red, so I went to my husband. He said white on red, he liked there being the red as a background.

I found some very good directions for this block, (here)

And this is what my block looked like!

fun blocks

Ohh buddy! This block was a toughie!! Not difficult per say, but it took a lot of time.  I actually started this Sunday night.  I got about half of the paper piecing pieces done (say that three times fast!).  Then Monday night I finished the pieces and sewed them into a block.  So it was time to remove the paper! I feel like that has taken more time than the sewing! (of course I would rather sew than remove paper, so. . .)

I was disappointed some of the seams didn't match up, and that is what I struggle the most with in paper piecing.  I think if I would have removed the paper before sewing them, I could have matched them up better.

I really really like this block, but there is NO way I would make a full quilt out of this block by paper piecing!  I found the paper pieced pattern here at generations quilt patterns.  It was very helpful, but I don't like the paper piecing.

Fun blocks

This block I have seen called many things. But the only name I can remember is crown of thorns.

I'm starting to get enough blocks I'm thinking about sashing and borders. I had an idea for the border, but I'm not sure I will have the fabric for it!

I am linking up to Kathy's Slow stitching sundays

Fun blocks

This was paper pieced.It is called palm leaves.  I did it slightly different than the pattern, the pattern called for two of the leaves to be facing inside.

I've found one if the reasons I don't like paper piecing is the fabric it wastes.But the results are awesome!

I almost had to rip some seams when I didn't make sure I had enough of some of the greens I was using! Because each paper pieced part is half of the palm leaf.

fun blocks - carpenters wheel

I have wanted to do this block, but it's SO intricate.  And has so many pieces! many of the times when I have seen it, I see it used as a medallion and so it's slightly larger than the other blocks, but for uniformity I wanted to make it 12".  I also am not a huge fan of triangles, especially when I can use HSTs so I googled.  And look what I found!

Isn't this AWESOME! I found it on quiltingboard.com.  It will help me out SO much!

Here is the block ALL done! I must say I quite like it! I might make one larger and make a full quilt out of it.  I will not do one this size again! those pieces were SMALL!

Fun blocks

This block was an interesting one! I chose it for a few reasons.  1) I loved the name (Joseph's coat, ie coat of many colors, I actually did this different than the pattern, the pattern used a few colors, I really wanted to make it look like Joseph's coat!) 2) it used triangles, which I am still working on using.  For the most part when I use triangles I do them as HSTs, and I could have done this for this block, but I thought I would try something different :)


I am quite proud of myself because I got most of the triangles to match up, I just have a few that didn't! I have some extra triangles, because when I made this, I tried to not put duplicates, and looking right now I only see two!

Getting into my sewing room has been difficult lately! I have two blocks for the swap I am in to finish (eeks! five days!) and I want to work more on my log cabins I have.  But school has been busy, and my husband and I have been traveling, which makes it hard to sew.

Children of Israel

This block was interesting. No squares. I cut out all the pieces for this. I must admit I was quite worried. But it was a lot easier to do then I thought.

I used one of my mini design boards (which I shared here). Having the board helped me lay it out!

Like the block I posted last week my husband helped me choose the colors. He was spot on with the blue I think!

Garden of Eden

I've actually made this block before, but that was with half square triangles. This one I made a square in a square.

My husband helped me decide on the colors!  I think he did well with the blue!

Devils puzzle - fun blocks

This block is called devils puzzle. I really should have done it with flying geese, but I would rather do HSTs.

I am going to call these my fun blocks. Just blocks I've wanted to try.

I love how this one kind of looks like a pinwheel but also arrows!

And here is a picture of the back, I was able to get the baby pinwheel!