Hello Stash Bee Hive 3! Welcome to your April Tutorial. We are making this 16-inch finished (16½ inch unfinished) double diamond block. I'll have you leave the two halves separate, please, as I might decide to stagger the diamonds when I put the quilt together.
I was supposed to be your lead bee for March, but life is rather more chaotic than usual at the moment, so I'm happy to have swapped months with Joanne, who apparently has her ducks in a row. Have you seen this meme:
Yeah, that's a pretty accurate representation of how I'm feeling right now.
Anyway. Color palette. We're doing cool colors. Prints or solids, whatever you've got. Green, mint, teal, aqua, turquoise, blue, indigo, periwinkle, violet, lavender ... you get the idea. Please stay away from greens that lean into the yellow-green or lime territory and purples that have a lot of red (NO magenta, fuchsia, etc.).
Accent fabric will be black solid, or a black and white or black and gray print that reads mostly black.
CUTTING DIRECTIONS
Choose 4 fabrics from the cool color palette. From each of these 4 fabrics, cut TWO (2) 5" x 9" rectangles. (Note: if you want a little more wiggle room for trimming you could cut the length at 9.5 inches, but I found this size large enough for these blocks.)
From black or black prints, cut EIGHT (8) 1½" x 12" strips. These can be all the same. They can be all different. They can be some the same and some different. I do not care.
Stack up ONE of each fabric from the cool tone rectangles you cut out above. Cut one stack diagonally bottom left to top right. Cut the other stack diagonally top left to bottom right.
SEWING DIRECTIONS
Choose one fabric for the inside of a diamond, and another fabric for the outside of the a diamond. Rotate the half rectangle triangles so that the layout shows one fabric forming the inner diamond shape and one fabric forming the background.
Place a black strip between each diamond-background pair.
Sew a black strip to the long side of each of the half rectangle triangles that make up the background of the half-block.
Flip each of the inner half rectangle triangles (the 4 that will make up the inner diamond) right sides together with the pieces you just sewed and line up the long edge on the other side of the black strip. Be sure the tip of this triangle does not extend beyond the base of the outer triangle or your rectangle unit will end up too short.
Sew the long edge of each of the inner half rectangle triangles to the other side of the black strip. Press open (or to the side, whatever feels right to you).
Sew four sections together to make one diamond, and one half of the 16 inch block. It's absolutely okay, and probably expected, if the pieces don't line up exactly right. This is a little bit improv-y when it comes to alignment.
Repeat for the other half of the block, but please keep the two halves separate. I've not yet decided on final layout for this quilt!
Done! Great job!
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