Modern Blocks

     The  guild I belong to recently started up a modern quilting sub group.  There are six of us in the group. We've only met a couple of times and what we've decided to do is to each make blocks which we put together into donation quilts.  The first one we made was the missing U from Sunday Morning quilts.  Scott just finished  quilting it on his long arm.  My blocks are the pink block on the left and the blue block beneath it.

      For our second project we decided to make two blocks each using any modern technique.  All these blocks would have a white background. 
     For my first block I decided I would do something simple.  I went with a modern cross block.  Here it is. Or should I say was.  Making this block turned into a bit of an Alice In Wonderland experience, where she eats the cake and shrinks or drinks the drinks and expands!

 

     Because the block was simple I  decided to wing it (not use a pattern), and I also thought it would be interesting to make the arms of the cross out of scraps.  I was aiming for an 8 1/2 "square.  I started with an 8 1/2 white block which I slashed. I thought the block would get bigger as I was adding fabric to it but of course as the angles were crooked by the time I trimmed it up it was only 7 1/2 ".  Then I found out the block was supposed to b 12 1/2 ".   You have to laugh.   My friend Wendy  suggested I make it larger by adding  a white border then a scrappy border followed by another white border.  I thought that was a great idea and decided to give it a go. 

      

     While figuring out how big to make each section I forgot that if the block needed 5 inches to get it to the 12 1/2 inches I would divide that by two to figure out how big to make each strip.  So of course after I added the first white strip and then the scrappy strip it was almost but not quite the right size.  To get the proportions right I ended up  trimming the scrappy strip way down before adding the final white strip.  I'm happy with it now.

 

      As I didn't have much time left to make the second block I figured I should make the second block an even simpler one but of course I messed up the math with this one as well!   Math difficulties aside I really enjoy the process of figuring out things as i go.   It will be interesting to see how these two blocks fit in with the ones made by the others in the group. I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at the needle and thread network.