Building Blocks (Part 2)

Sixteen units make a lovely block… and Yes, in my head that is set to the tune of “Sixteen Candles.” Here are several of the quilt squares that can be made using these simple quarter circle units as the building blocks.

I already mentioned Robbing Peter to Pay Paul (I’m certain this has something to do with the Biblical Peter and Paul and the collection of tithes in the early church, but I have no anecdotal proof.)

There are two versions of Robbing Peter to Pay Paul that use the unit we’re looking at. (There are also other variations that do not use this same basic unit).

If I had made an uneven number of units this next block could have been Wonder of the World (the four corners would have their values reversed) which is also pictured in the last post. With even numbers of light and dark quarter circles though, this is as close as you can get. Turns out this is Fool’s Puzzle, then.

Reverse Baseball -- Frankly, I don’t see the point of this one. Unless you use sashing the fact that it’s “reverse” gets completely lost. For more fun just go ahead and appliqué polkadot circles on wholecloth, asymmetrically of course.

Note that I am too lazy to sample all the possible patterns – I have used graph paper (don’t you love graph paper?) to illustrate the blocks Around the World which requires 16 identical units, and Love Ring also known as Nonesuch which requires 36 units so my sample would be huge. Sixteen units evenly divided works just fine for me, thanks. I know that somewhere there is another name for Queen’s Crown but I haven’t been able to find it. And really, since I’m being lazy today, one name is enough, don’t you think?

Many quilt names apply to more than one block, just as many quilt blocks have more than one name. The Snowball doesn’t always look like the above block and Ocean Waves (below) is also called Falling Timber.

There are two Drunkard’s Path blocks that use our quarter circle unit.

Drunkards Path – the version below anyway – is also known by the name of Rocky Road to Dublin. Which I’m hoping was not meant as an ethnic slur. I haven’t done the research on that one, but we’ll assume it wasn’t meant to indicate a drunken Irishman trying to find his way home from the pub, but was instead a keen observation on potholes and cobbles decorating the highways around that great town. While famous for its musical culture and the Book of Kells (housed at Trinity College, which people have also heard of), Dublin goes down in my book as being the home of the Italian restaurant Paddy Garibaldi’s. Twelve years ago my friend Fiona and I, tired and hungry, found it open on a bank holiday and were deserted by the rest of our group who went, in vain, to look for someplace better than “that hole in the wall.” Fiona and I ate there every night, and by the end of our week in Dublin everyone else in our group was eating there too.

Vine of Friendship creates diagonals that have many possibilities in setting. Placing them different directions could create diamond patterns, all striped diagonals, or zig zags. Fun.

And then there’s Wishing Well , when I sew my units together I think this is the pattern I’ll use. I love the round and flow of this pattern (and it’s perfect for penny fabric).

For those of you wondering why I’ve switched fabrics between posts – I have a yard of the pennies, and there’s something fitting about using a money print to illustrate Robbing Peter to Pay Paul and Wishing Well – don’t you think? Basically though, I ran out of carrot fabric. I knew I would. I only bought a fat quarter to began with, and I have used it in sampling several times already – always in combo with that lovely repro Depression Era orange which began life as a third (of a yard) and so is also running low. In case you’re curious, the test samples I make up generally become potholders or pillows – obviously the carrot samples became potholders.