As I promised last week here’s my quick and
cheap tutorial for the Hold the Pickle block.
The block is effectively a Pickle Dish Variation variation and once I modified
it to remove the Drunkards Path units it lost its dish shape. I’ve named the
quilt I’m making already as my Hold the Pickle Quilt, thus these are Hold the
Pickle blocks.
I’ve given myself some parameters for fabric
choices that you can ignore completely for your version. I’ve decided that I’m
trying to achieve a sweet and pretty vintage effect so I’m using pastels for
the backgrounds (B1 and B2) for the simple quarter log cabin units (not sure
what to call these bits), low-volume prints as background for the star sections
(B3) and checks, dots, and small scale florals for the focus prints in the
centre (F). Star points are S. That’s what you’ll see in the photos.
I’m also using a tri-recs ruler these days to
cut the fabric for the triangle in a square unit but I started out doing them
as paper-pieced. You can find a pdf here
from Generations Quilt Patterns for paper-piecing templates and paper-piecing cutting templates.
For this block we make 3 inch finished units.
So now that we’ve all got our templates ready
we can start cutting.
CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS
For the triangle-in-a-square units, start with
strips of your chosen fabric (S and B3) wide enough to fit your templates on
and cut 8 star points and 4 background triangles.
Cut two 3 ½” squares from the B3 fabric.
From the B1 and B2 backgrounds cut one each
3
½” square
3
½” x 6 ½” rectangle
From the F fabrics cut a total of four 3 ½”
squares
SEWING IT TOGETHER
This part’s pretty easy.
(Notice how suddenly my fabrics have gone all
wrinkly? That’s because a gust of wind blew them all over the garden and I had
to chase them and grab them quickly in my sweaty little hand. Thoroughly
annoyed I took the photo ANYWAY. Notice also that I have the far left star point section upside down - don't do that.)
Sew the B1 and B2 squares to two F squares,
then attach the B1 and B2 rectangles to make the quarter log cabin units.
Lay out the star points S around the B3
triangles to make sure you’ve got everything lined up okay and then stitch
together.
Arrange the different bits to make sure
everything’s pointing in the right direction. Sew together two
triangle-in-a-square units to the two B3 squares and two triangle-in-a-square
units to two F squares (black arrows). Sew these two sections together (red
arrows).
Sew the sections together like a four patch and
*ta-da!* one block done! The block is 12" finished.
I hope this all makes sense to you. If you have
any questions or need some clarification, please comment and I’ll endeavor to
fix it.
