Hive 2: October tutorial - Moroccan tile block

I am a big fan of disappearing blocks and I'm sure you've all heard of the disappearing nine patch. Brita Nelson, the Questioning Quilter is the expert on disappearing blocks, she makes so many disappear, it is hard to say which one is my favorite! 

But I made the choice and for this month, I'd like to request you make a disappearing hourglass block. When you make the hourglass disappear, a very easy Moroccan Tile block appears when you put it all together. You can see a tutorial here. Brita's tutorial is very easy to follow, and if you are interested, she does a lot of different disappearing blocks. 

I am also a very scrappy quilter, so that will hopefully work in your favor :-) 

Start by finding 4 very colorful 5" squares. I love batiks, bold colors and prints, and the more random you can put them together, the better it will look. I'd prefer 4 different colors, but if you have a light one and a dark one of the same color, that works too (like in my example block). Contrast is key though, so yellow won't work very well, go for bright & happy. (I love reds, blues, teals, turquoise, pinks and oranges, and I'm learning to love greens & purples now haha)

Please, do not use neon colors, seasonal prints (Christmas, halloween etc), or kids fabrics, or fabrics that have a lot of white in them.

To give you some ideas, here are three pictures of perfectly great options!

You will need 4 colored 5" squares and 4 white 5" squares. When I say white, I mean the whitest white you have; no cream, no tan etc. White on white would be great too! 

1. Draw a diagonal line on the back of the white squares. 
2. Pair the colored squares with the white squares and sew a scant 1/4 inch from the diagonal line on both sides. 
3. Cut the square on the diagonal line and you now have two identical half square triangles. (if necessary, square them up to 4.5 inch HST. 
4. Sew 4 different HST together in an hourglass block. Note the placement of the darker triangles:
   
   
   
   
   
5. You can either discard the other 4 HST, or you can sew them together in an hourglass as well. (I'm not sure if I can ask you to make two blocks, so I leave it up to you. If you prefer, you can also send me the HST you have leftover ;-) ) 
6. You now are going to make the hourglass disappear, by making 4 cuts 1.5" from the centre line: 
   
   
   
   
   
   Note that you now have different size columns' and rows, and that is how it's meant to be :-) (The centre row/column measures 3" and the other two rows/columns measure 2.75")
7. Then rotate the four corner square 180 degrees and you'll get this: 
   
   
   
   
   
8. Sew the nine squares back together and you are done. Your block should now measure 7.5 inches (it will be a finished 7" block). 

If you do choose to sew two blocks for me, I'd appreciate it, if you made the second block the opposite way of the first block, so you'd get these blocks: 

 

When I put all the blocks together, the quilt will look something like below, and as you can see, the more contrast you can find, the better it will be. 

I hope you'll have fun making this block and I'm looking forward to receiving them :-)

Thank you!