Hive 5 July Tutorial - Plus Block for @missprissquilts

 

Hi Quilty Friends!

It's hard to believe that it's already July, when I signed up for this block swap, it seemed so far away!

For my turn as Stashbee Queen, I've chosen this 4-patch plus block.  

It may well have another name, but I don't know what it is!  It's certainly an old pattern - I got the idea from a vintage quilt made by a friend's great-grandmother, and I knew when I saw it that I wanted to try and recreate it in a modern way.  The original was absolutely a scrap quilt, made of old clothes, and completely hand pieced!  

 

I drew it out in EQ using low volume neutrals for the 4-patches, and bright colors for the sashing, and I think I'm going to love it!  I decided to enlarge the units to make the pieces easier to work with (the original units are barely 1" finished!!)

This is what the large unit looks like in isolation, but I'm asking that each of my hive-mates make me one quadrant, which will give me enough to assemble several of the larger blocks!

Materials:

16 - 3.5" low-volume gray/neutral squares 

4 - 2.5"x6.5" bright-colored/jewel-tone strips

1 - 2.5" bright-colored square (fussy-cut if possible!)

I'm going for a very scrappy look, so I don't mind if you mix tan-based and blue-based grays (I definitely did!).  Feel free to repeat fabrics, but try and make each four-patch unique.  I didn't intend to go polka-dot crazy, but I never met a dot I didn't like, so I guess it's not surprising, but you needn't feel obligated to do the same.  I'd like the bright sashing strips to read as a solid color, but a fun print is totally perfect for the 2.5" cornerstone unit.  I don't mind batiks as long as they are definitely modern in aesthetic.

I am really really bad at random, so I went ahead and laid out all of my pieces in advance.  Notice that the darker fabric in the four patches are oriented to make an X pattern.

To make each four patch, stitch the 3.5" squares together in pairs, pressing toward the dark fabric, then stitch the two pairs together as shown.

Once all four 4-patch units are assembled, stitch each row as shown below: 

sashing units between two 4-patches, and the 2.5" square between the remaining two sashing units.  Press toward the sashing.

Your completed unit will look like this, and should come out to 14.5" so that they finish at 14" when I stitch them all together!