Hive 5 - Dala Horses for Josie

 Happy New Year, Quilters!  I am starting off the year with some sweet little Dala horses in bright red and blue.  This pattern comes from a Moda Christmas Countdown and is written by Nicola Dodd of Cakestand Quilts. Traditional Dala horses are in bright primary colors, most often in red, and have such a cheerful, sweet Scandinavian vibe.  They are unofficial mascots of Sweden, which is why you may be thinking "...didn't I see this in Ikea??" 

For your background fabric, please select a bright, clean white.  It can have a tone on tone pattern if you would like, but it should read visually as clean white. For your horses, please select bright, crisp blues or reds...but you have options!  Please select either a fun, lively pattern that reads red or blue overall, OR go with a nice solid.  I plan to embroider some of the Dala horse details onto the solid horsies, or if you have a yen for embroidery (or a machine that does fun stitches), please feel free to send your own pattern.  Here is my pull of my colors, and I can tolerate all the way to a bright scarlet (a little darker than pictured) or royal blue.  As long as it's poppy and fun, you've got the right idea!

Let's get cutting!

From WHITE BACKGROUND, cut:

• one 4.5x9.5"
• one 4.5x5.5"
• one 3.5x8.5"
• one 3.5" square
• one 2.5" square
• one 1.5x5.5"
• one 1.5x2.5" 
• one 1.5" square

From your HORSE BODY COLOR, cut: 

• one 4.5x9.5"
• one 3.5x7.5"
• two 3x5"
• one 1.5" square

Start simple with the horse's body...we gotta give him a little butt. Draw a line down the center back side of the white 1.5" square, then pin the piece, right sides together, to the upper right corner of the large 4.5x9.5" rectangle of body color. Sew along your line, then trim your corner a quarter inch from the seam, and press flat. Set aside.

 The legs are the only tricky bit of this block. Take your two 3x5" body pieces and place them right sides together.  Mark a point 1.25" from the lower right corner on the short side, and draw a line from that point up to the top right corner. Cut along this line and you should have two mirrored pieces. I'm including Nicola's sketch as well as my work because my pattern makes the line a little hard to see.

Now that we have our legs, we're going to mark where they'll be sewn in place.  Take your 4.5x9.5" background piece, and with the piece sitting lengthwise, make a mark 2" in from both top corners, and another pair of marks 1" from the bottom two corners. Draw lines connecting the top and bottom marks. 

Take your leg pieces and with right sides together, align the cut diagonal edge of the leg piece with the line you just drew on the background fabric. The corners of the cut diagonal edge should extend about a 1/4" over the background fabric. Stitch 1/4" from the cut diagonal edge, then you can press the leg open and trim the block to the original 4.5x9.5", using the background fabric as a guide. (After I trimmed this section, I also flipped the legs back over and trimmed the excess white fabric, but you don't have to!) My picture shows one leg aligned and sewn, and one already flipped and pressed.

Now we need to make this little guy's head.  Take your 3.5" and 2.5" white background squares and draw a line down the center back side of the fabric. Align the 2.5" corner in the top left side of the 2.5x7.5" body color rectangle with right sides together, sew along your line, trim your excess, and press open.  Do the same with the 3.5" square in the top right corner of the body color rectangle.

Last corner triangle!  To make our horse's ear, draw a line on the back side fabric of the 1.5" body color square, position it right sides together at the bottom left of the 1.5x5.5" background piece.  Check your positioning to make sure that the ear will be cocked forward! Sew along the line, trim excess, press. 

Finally, join your 1.5x2.5" background piece to the left of the ear strip.  

Now all we have to do is put this little friend together!  Sew your ear strip to the top of the head block (As you can see, my ear strip was very slightly short. For alignment's sake, I recommend lining up the leftmost edges of the head and ear strips so that the ear lands nicely at the top of the "forehead.").  Then, attach your 4.5x5.5" background piece to the right side of the head. Sew the legs to the body, then sew the 3.5x8.5" background piece to the left side of the body/leg block.  Finally, sew the head unit to the body unit. 

Look how cute that little Dala horse is!  Your finished block should be about 12" square.  If you choose to add designs to your solid block, please feel free, but don't feel that you have to...I will be embellishing as I assemble!