Sidetracked!!

Because of Covid-19, all of my Quilt Guild spring meetings have been cancelled, but we had one in June, outside, social distancing 6 ft apart.

We will meet again like this in July, and it is my turn to present the lesson.  My turn for the lesson was actually in May, but that was cancelled, and I got put in the July slot for teaching.  It's hard to know what to teach the group.  Lots of experienced quilters here, not really any newbies.  The Sew '  Sews have been meeting now for 7 years. 

I have found lots of "disappearing" blocks that look really hard, but the construction of the blocks is not in the sewing, it's in the cutting.You start with a simple block, a pinwheel or a 9-patch for example, and cut, rotate, and Voila!  A new exciting complicated-looking block results! It was my plan to show some of these blocks to the group.

As everyone knows, the best of plans can go astray!  While experimenting with this idea, and making sample blocks, I came across a very simple block and got ... sidetracked! 

It's all the fault of the "Disappearing Shoofly!"  Here is the Shoofly Block, a simple 9-patch block consisting of 4 HST's and 5 squares:

Cut like this, rotate like that...

   

Voila!  You get this...

It's a really quick and easy block, and there are no matching seams to worry about-- nothing touches!.  There are a few corners that touch each other,  but that's easily handled with nested seams. Even when you put the blocks in rows, still no area touches each other except at the corners.  It doesn't get much easier than this!!

 SO!!  Looks like my program presentation next month will be about the Disappearing Shoofly!