Last Two Blocks!

The last two blocks for my MIL's special birthday sampler quilt came from this book - one directly, one indirectly.

My first choice was this strip rail block -

Strip Rail Block

I felt that the quilt needed another square patterned block as there are quite a few with a star/triangular feel to them.  (Though ironically, its construction is from HSTs anyway.) I'm quite proud that I managed to get all those diagonal joins to line up - it definitely paid to take my time with this one!

The instructions worked a treat, though I changed it slightly so I was sewing two diagonal lines across the wrong side of the strip squares before cutting the triangles rather than sewing biased edge triangles together and making a horlicks of it.

Then, trying to decide which block should be my final addition to the quilt, I noticed this photo of a sampler quilt by Liz Parsons in the same book.  The centre block in the fourth row down caught my eye.  Unfortunately, the pattern for it doesn't seem to be in the book but it really wasn't that difficult to figure out the maths myself.

And, I am so glad I did because I really love this wee block and I loved making it.  I wish I knew what it is called, but for now I have affectionately called it "Four-lips" (because it looks to me like four little tulip quadrants).  If you happen to know what this block is actually called, please do let me know.

So, with all 12 blocks finished, I couldn't resist laying them out to see them all together - do you want a peep?  Do you?  Here you go ...

As you can see I even laid out the sashing (which you may remember I cut along with all the borders and binding before I started the blocks just to protect my fabric quantities).  It might take me a while to get used to this patterned sashing but I think it will look grand when it's all together properly.  There are lots of those blocks that I really am glad I tried and I do think my MIL will be pleased, which is the point after all!

Nice to feel like I am making progress at last!


PS Because I am a numpty and posted one post when I forgot I had this one scheduled for later in the day, you may have missed my earlier Sew Mama Sew Giveaway post - it's here if you don't want to miss out!