The Desperate Housewife’s Quilt – Block 8 Board Games

Welcome to week 8 of the ‘The Desperate Housewife’s Quilt’. Todays block is all about piecing and having fun with colours. Remember, this is not a quilt-a-long. Just follow the blog every week and pick and choose which blocks you would like to make. I will be injecting some uniqueness into traditional blocks, applique, three dimensional, crazy and thread-art blocks. If you make a block you can post it on the Flickr group for everyone to enjoy. Also, I have this nifty button under each post that allows you to save the post as a PDF.

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Be sure to visit this week’s Guest Blogger and their wonderful block.

Kelley from Pioneer Quilter will be joining us today with her sweet block – sugar loaf block. Here is a little about Kelley…

I love traditional blocks and I love what most people call the “modern” fabrics. I think combining them together makes for an interesting and happy coincidence. I also love to hand piece and I never let the chance to get someone else hooked on it slip by!

I’ve been quilting since I was about 24 years old. Hand-piecing and hand-quilting are my favorite things to do. And though I don’t much care for assembly line piecing I do love knocking out a good quick pattern now and then. I have a blog and a podcast about quilting called the Pioneer Quilter. A lot of people think that my interest in hand work makes me hard-core traditionalist but it doesn’t really. I love the new waves of fabric coming along. I can’t believe how limited I was when I started, and by comparison, how much more limited quilters were just ten years before I started! Our quilting universe is expanding and I think that is terrific. I live in Northeast Ohio with The Husband and our two kids, The Boy and The Girl (that is how I refer to them in my podcast) and our two dogs, Duke and Krypto.

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Board Games

When the storm knocks out the power, grab a torch and some board games and entertain the kids for hours.

Techniques explored

Piecing
Addition and Subtraction of fabrics.

Materials

I have selected solids for this block from a charm pack and yardage.

Cutting

From the black cut

4 – 2.5″ x 1.5″ rectangles
4 – 2.5″ x 3.75″ rectangles
2 – 3″ squares then cut once on the diagonal to yield 4 triangles
8 – 2″ x 1.5″ rectangles

From the red cut

4 x 2″ x 1.5″ rectangles

From the assorted colours cut

4 x 2″ x 1.5″ rectangles

For the centre block cut two strip sets as shown above. Each strip will be 1.25″ x 5″

Making the Centre Block

Sew the strip sets together, press open seams

Make 1.25″ segments from strip set
Layout the strips as shown in the diagram below and sew them together remembering to match seams at each intersection

Trim back the finished block to 4.75″ if required.
Add your corner triangles. The tip of the triangle should be aligned with the centre. Cut of the ‘bunny ears’.

Press seams to one side

Add the other triangles at each end remembering to place the tip of the triangle aligned with the centre.
Trim the finished block to 4.75″ square leaving 1/4″ at the tips of the 16-patch.

Making the 4-patch blocks

Join the dark 2″ x 1.5″ pieces to the 4 red and 4 coloured pieces. Press open the seams. Trim back the finished block to 1.5″ x 2.5″ to make one half of the 4-patch. The un-finished 4 -patch will be 2.5″ x 2.5″ (I could have cut 1.5″ x 1.5″ squares to start with but when working with small pieces I personally find trimming back gives me a more accurate piece).

Putting the block together

Lay the pieces out as shown below and sew together the pieces as indicated by the arrows. Remember to match intersecting seams.

Sew those finished pieces as indicated by the arrows in the diagram below.

Sew the completed rows together as indicated below.

This block may be a tad larger than 8.5″ unfinished so trim it back to 8.5″. (This is due to the small pieces in the middle being cut at 1.25″ not 1 3/16″ inches. I thought I would make it easier for you).

Original and grunge

The block

Horizontal Layout

Horizontal Layout replacing coloured pieces with black

On Point Layout

Add colour and subtracting background

I hope you have all enjoyed this weeks block. Next week I bring you a block that is all washed up.

*** Please remember that these blocks and any blocks designed by guest bloggers should not be used for commercial purposes ( sold as a pattern, published etc) without the written consent of the owner ***