Project Quilting 16.3: Common Blocks

 

This week's Project Quilting challenge theme was Common Blocks where participants were required to incorporate at least three (3) common quilt blocks into our projects.

Tuesday evening, I sketched a simple 9-patch flower and 4-patch leaf design right before going to sleep and was excited to revisit this idea using some of my hand-carved block prints.

In the morning, I looked through my collection of hand-carved blocks for all and any quilt-block inspiration: half-square triangles, quarter circles to use as drunkard's path, log cabin, flying geese, rail fence, 4-patch, and 9-patch designs.

Each motif was printed these onto a master sheet that I could photocopy and cut into paper tiles to audition different block-printed combinations.   

With my sets of paper tiles stacked and organized, I set a 15-minute timer and challenged myself to see how many abstract floral designs I could create using the various block prints. This tactic helped me to work quickly without overthinking the designs. I simply moved the tiles around into different configurations and snapped a photo before exploring other combinations. When the 15-minute timer went off, I had a few more designs I wanted to try so I extended the tile play for another 2-3 minutes. In those 17-18 minutes, I came up with 18 different flower shapes (16 of which are included in the mosaic below)...

and 4 different leaf designs.

On Friday, I went to work printing my favorite motifs onto designer shot silk swatches that were then fussycut into 2.5" squares. 

Thankfully the piecing went fairly quickly but I took great care to handle the silk fabric carefully to minimize distortion when piecing/pressing and/or fraying along the edges. 

There were enough block printed squares to piece six leaves and six flower heads. I snapped a quick photo and opted to take a nap as I had a feeling it might be a late night to finish my project.

I explored a few layout ideas but really liked arranging the flowers into a ring interspersed with the 4-patch leaves. Several different fabrics were auditioned to fill in the gaps, but I kept coming back to this icy blue rayon that I fused with Pellon SF101 Shape-Flex interfacing to counter its slinkiness. I considered incorporating a bit of block printing, but liked how it provided some much-needed negative space for the viewer's eye to rest.

Here are all 10 common blocks that were printed onto the silk swatches using Jet Black Ranger Archival ink: drunkard's path, log cabin, 9-patch, rail fence, 4-patch, wrap around borders, 60-degree triangle, a half-square triangle with crazy patchwork, and a dresden-circle-like motif.

As I wanted the block printing to be the focus, I kept the quilting fairly minimal starting with stitching in the ditch followed by outlining the flowers and leaves in a monofilament thread. Those icy-blue rectangles were free-motion quilted loop-de-loop leaves connected to a central stem. 

I'm really pleased with this finished piece. It's definitely a more muted color palette for me, but the luxurious silk and rayon fabric adds a lovely shimmer, especially against the block-printed motifs. There were several block-printed squares leftover, so I am tempted to piece some companion mini quilts.

Common Block-Printed Posies, Finishes 17" x 19"