Vintage Block QAL Block 3, Beggar Block

Vintage Block QAL No. 3, "Beggar Block"

Oh, fine -- so I didn't make a start on my skirt like I wanted to.  The day got away from me; by the time I finished all the work that HAD to get done, it was late afternoon.  Only enough time and energy to throw together another quick and easy block before dinner time.

Charise's Beggar Block, from Charise Creates here

This is the third block in Charise's Vintage Block Quilt Along, "Beggar Block," and Charise found the block in a circa 1929 Kansas City Star.  You can find Charise's tutorial and pattern for a 12" block here, but my block finishes at 6" so I can mix it in with my sampler blocks from other sources.  I love Charise's sweet vintage-inspired fabrics and her fussy-cut typographical fabrics, but I felt like playing with brighter, bolder colors for this block.  The small size of the fabric patches made them perfect for that 2014 Kaffe Fassett Collection jelly roll that has been languishing off to the side in my studio for awhile now.  The black center square with multicolored dots is a scrap from the second quilt I ever made, and the blue and green Kaffe Fassett prints are also in my pineapple log cabin quilt.  I kind of like it when every quilt is connected to other quilts.

What I MEANT to do -- the other orange goes in the top right corner

I'm not sure I love how this block came out, though.  To be honest, I had it laid out differently but when I pieced the rows together, somehow the center row came out upside down so I ended up with two orange "bows" together and two blue "bows" together.  I didn't realize this until AFTER I had starched and pressed the finished block, unplugged the iron, and turned off the sewing machines.

See? Center row is flipped, so two oranges adjacent

Whatever.  At the moment I don't feel like taking it apart, and so it stays.  Here is the wall full of completed 6" sampler blocks:

Assorted 6" Sampler Blocks

Perhaps tomorrow will be the day I get started on that skirt...

Design Wall Monday: Vintage Block QAL #2, "Night and Day" by Alice Brooks

This post will be a quickie so I can get back to work.  I pieced together Block 2 in Charise Creates' Vintage Quilt Block Quilt Along, "Night and Day" by Alice Brooks. 

6" Night and Day Block

The patterns on Charise's site are all for 12" finished blocks, but I'm making 6" versions so I can mix them in with my Farmer's Wife and Farmer's Wife 1930s sampler blocks.  "Night and Day" was a good skill builder due to the Y seams and curved seams.  These curved seams were easy compared to the ones I've sewn previously for the Rose Dream block and for the Drunkard's Path blocks in Lars's quilt, because it's a very slight curve.  The Y-seams get a little easier every time. 

Redrafting the block from an enlarged photo and then adding curved seam allowances was tricky, and I wouldn't recommend doing it that way if you were going to make an entire quilt using this block as it's probably not 100% symmetrical and seams joining adjacent blocks might not match up perfectly.  In retrospect, I should have just drafted one quarter segment of the block and then repeated those templates for the other three quadrants; then the resulting block would be perfectly symmetrical. But I think this came out just fine for the purposes of a sampler project.

Here are my completed 6" blocks thus far:

Completed 6" Sampler Blocks

So, what do you think -- are my blocks starting to look like they "go together" better now that there are more of them?  I'm not terribly worried about it.  I'm just enjoying each block as a separate mini project.  Next time I get a chance to sew, I should probably piece another pineapple log cabin block or two.  I just received a fabric order of goodies from The Fat Quarter Shop with more solid and print blues and greens to renew my sewjo-mojo on that project.  I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times, Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts, Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilts, Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, and Moving It Forward at Em's Scrap Bag.