Happy New Year everyone and so sorry this is a day late. I thought I’d checked all my Mama commitments for January but this slipped through….

Anyway this  is a block I’ve wanted to play with for a while. It’s been sitting in my Pinterest quilt pictures for a few months and it always struck me as a great design for an older teen boy provided the colours were kept cool and clean. So in effect I have minimised the colours and kept it to a very restricted palette  and mixed in lots of greys and whites.

Do feel free to play with the contrast between the two fabrics  in each block. You can see from examples in the top picture in one I’ve gone for minimal contrast in others fairly strong contrast.

In terms of that restricted palette…. just dark, medium or light grey, white, they can be prints or solids. If you do want to mix in a bit of colour as I have done then can you please keep to yellowy greens. The colour of the fabric in the block I’ve made is an olive.  Knowing how subjective colours are I’ve put a picture below showing on the left bluey greens that  I definitely don’t want and over on the right yellowy greens that I do. In the bottom picture I’ve even put a muddy gold colour  which I think works well.

It is the simplest of blocks, but certainly when road testing designs  with my teens  they like very simple graphic  designs  more than complex blocks ! Well if you are like me trying to restore the house to some sort of normality after Christmas then simple is good….

Anyway for each block you will need

4 rectangles   5.5” by 4” in one fabric

4 rectangles 5.5” by 4” in another fabric.

Arrange in a chequerboard fashion and sew together with a scant 1/4” seam.

You should end up with a block 14.5” by 10.5” . Please trim to this size

Any problems or concerns please get in touch.

Many thanks