quilt blocks, quilt blocks and more quilt blocks!

remember how i mentioned the quilt blocks i made for examples of the september challenge for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild?

i can show you now!

if you've been following my blog for a while, you might have realized that i freaking LOVE halloween! i jokingly say that i've never grown out of my goth phase, but honey, it's so true.

for the september challenge, we decided to do halloween blocks. we wanted to have something consistent between them, but didn't want to limit people too much, so we decided that all the blocks had to use kona black in them.

since we already have two projects on the go with challenge blocks, we decided that these ones should go home with folks, so we're going to use them for a draw. for every 10 blocks entered, there'll be a winner, and each block you bring will count as an entry. so if 50 blocks show up, there will be 5 winners of 10 blocks each!

a smaller size block was suggested, so that they could be used for wall hangings, table runners, etc if people wanted to whip something up between the next quilt meeting on october 21st and halloween itself, so the blocks need to be 6.5" square (6" finished size).

i went a little bit overboard making samples for the guild meeting - i just couldn't resist! i went looking for halloween fabric, because goodness knows, i didn't have nearly enough already, and ran across a really cute line, Seen On Halloween, by Maywood Studio at a local shop. i'm also totally enamoured with Eerie Alley, by SEI for Robert Kaufman, but i haven't seen them anywhere locally. i'm waiting for payday to snatch some up!

but anyway, back to the blocks!
(i'm posting them smaller than usual, cause there's a lot of them... click on them to see them bigger on flickr! the fabric lines are listed on the flickr photos too!)

window box blocks
i love the green spiders!


i did 3 of these, just to show how you could use some of the cute panel fabrics available




a bunch of fun pinwheel and whirlwind blocks -




and i know, the last one doesn't use Kona - bad example! i got carried away...)

a log cabin block, cause i love those...


a square within a square block


a few random ones



and the star of the show, a purple paper pieced owl!

(pattern by Artisania!)


i had a bit of a struggle resizing the block designs to fit the 6.5" requirement, and i had no idea that there are actually computer programs that can do that for you! for that matter, it didn't even occur to me to google 6.5" block patterns, i was so impatient to get started. duh!

however, since i DID do all the work, i thought i'd share so you wouldn't have to do it yourself.

for the window box block, cut a 5" square of fabric A, a 2" square of fabric B, and two black rectangles 2"x5"

for the square in a square block
cut a 2.75" square of the centre fabric
cut a 2.75" square, a 2.75"x2" rectangle, a 2"x6.5" rectangle, and a 2.75"x6.5" rectangle of the outer fabric

for the pinwheel block
black fabric: cut 2 squares 3 7/8" and cut them as below

black fabric: cut one square 4.25" and cut as below

print fabric: cut one square 4.25" and cut as below


whirlwind block
print fabric 1: cut two 3 7/8" squares and cut as below

print fabric 2: cut a 4.25" square and cut as below

black fabric: same as print fabric 2

and the log cabin block
cut a 2.5" centre square, and 1.5" strips



and other than halloween, i also finished my 3rd 12.5"x12.5" wonky monkey block, from july's challenge

this one's my favourite of the 3!



i didn't have time before the meeting to finish the flying geese block, or make anything cool with the scraps, but oh well. i was more excited about the halloween fabric!