This month should have been Charlotte’s as mama for the month of May with the prospect of making butterfly blocks of her own design which she has been tempting us with on her IG feed recently. Unfortunately a family bereavement has meant that Charlotte understandably needs to deal with all the issues and sadness following this loss. We all wish her well.

So to keep the ball rolling the bee will be going for  ‘plan b’, a design I spied relatively recently in Quilt Now. It’s designed by Trudi Wood and if that’s not recommendation enough it struck me as reasonably simple but very effective. I’m sure I’m breaking every copy right law going but here is the picture from the magazine – but it is for charity after all!!

 

Now what I’m after bee members is simple quarter square triangle blocks like the ones below… 4 please.

You must be thinking this is very straight forward where’s the catch!!! Well there are a couple of points to be careful of please.

1.  I’m being very picky over colours as I’m thinking this would make a great older boy/teen quilt. I love the royal/deep blue colours of Trudi’s design. So please limit yourself to royal blue and all darker shades of blue up to darkest navy.  So no lighter blues, turquoise , aqua etc please. You can also use dark greys or black and white prints as I’ve used above. Absolutely no flowers or anything ‘pretty’. For example I considered this fabric but rejected it on the basis it was a bit too girly and fussy.

But in recognition that I’m being difficult then please, please feel free to contact me if you’ve nothing suitable in your stash.   I’ve loads of these types of masculine fabrics and can easily send you some if that would  help.

2. The other thing to bear in mind is that the final block should have an hour glass look to it with the two darker fabrics facing each other rather than being adjacent to each other. You just need to check when you construct the quarter square triangle block that you’ve got the quarter segments the right way round to get the hour glass effect. As you can see below I failed to do with the second block.

Right, demanding mama over!  Now to the blocks themselves.

You will need 2 darker royal or navy blue or dark grey 10″ squares and two lighter squares (not lighter blue but lighter because of white/light grey back ground).  Make half square triangles using your preferred method.  Do not trim them but make quarter square triangles.  Now trim to 8.5″.

This is the ‘grandmothers sucking eggs’  bit. I was wondering how to trim the blocks to ensure that cross over point was bang in the middle. I discovered my omnigrip square ruler has a clever scale on the diagonal line.  So I could line up the diagonal line on the diagonal line of the block and then position the cross over point on that line at 4.25 and then trim – see pic below. I’m sure everybody else knew this but just in case…..

I’m going to make the quilt a bit bigger and have 9 rows and hence need 27 blocks. If everyone makes 4 then I  should end with quite a few more so and if I get enough then  I will happily make another quilt

And finally the sharp eyed may have seen the blocks in Trudi’s design with 2 small quarter square triangles and 2 plain squares. They are easier to see in the picture with Trudi. We don’t need many of these but if you fancy making one of your blocks in this design then please let me know and I will let you have the measurements.

It really is a privilege to make quilts for this worthwhile charity. For other readers who don’t know the charity it provides an opportunity for siblings separated in the care system in the U.K. to meet up and have a holiday together to create memories for hopefully lifelong relationships in the future even if they never actually live  together  again. To have a momento of that time each child  is given a quilt.

I was trying to explain to my teenage children about why I make these quilts (‘you are not sewing again?’ is a constant moan). Initially from their perspective  the prospect of not being able to live with their brother/sister and living in separate homes wasn’t seen as too much of a disadvantage! I then pointed out that for all the squabbles and arguments once any one of them is challenged by anyone outside the home they rush to their defence and the family bonds are strong.

I was reminded of this when I had a recent call from school about one of my sons’ behaviour. For those of you who have only had or have angelic children (like my daughter) you won’t know the ‘joy’ of having a call from school about yet another misdeameanor. It has happened all too often ….. although sometimes it’s been entertaining like the time my son was disciplined for being overheard in a private  conversation saying a female teacher ‘looked a bit like Donald Trump’. I gave the school short shrift on that one – a private conversation? This time however it was exactly what I was talking about, sibling protectiveness, as my son had ‘lamped’ another boy (the teacher’s word not mine) who’d called  his sister something rude and biologically impossible. My daughter was thrilled to bits he had come to her rescue  and of course he was utterly unrepentant!!

As very much a work in progress I’m linking up with a Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts