Tuesday, September 27, 2011

What Is This Block?

Recently I've seen these blocks on a few people's blogs. No-one credited a designer, or even said what the block was called, so I don't know where it came from, and I haven't yet worked out the correct search term to find out. Does anyone know where this design originated? I'd appreciate it if you could let me know in the comments, please.
Whatever it is called, I was intrigued and wanted to give it a go. That's four 36-patch blocks I made this afternoon.

Because I haven't seen any instructions for the block, I did it my own way, which took me about 40 minutes to make each block. That included only about 10 minutes of sewing:

And another 10 minutes or so of pressing:

Cutting those 36 squares took the first 20 minutes, and I was working with pre-cut strips. If you were starting from scratch I'd allow a bit more than that.

However, it was easy, mindless piecing, and a relaxing way to spend the afternoon. And I've still got plenty of strips left, so I'm sure I'll make some more of these blocks soon.

Later:
Thanks to your comments, and a little more focused googling, I found the original source of the blocks I'd seen on other people's blogs. It is Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trip Around The World. There is a major difference in the way she makes the block (compared with what I did) which reduces the time spent cutting considerably. After seeing hers, I revisited the blogs I'd seen to see if they had made their blocks Bonnie's way, and yes, they have. Funnily enough, as I was making it I wondered about doing it that way, and dismissed it. I should have looked more closely at the blog pictures that inspired me! If you can't see the difference, the main one is that my block uses 11 different fabrics, and Bonnie's uses only 6. But now I've started doing this the hard way, I'll probably keep going.

2 comments:

kaiteM said...

you are very fast, i would still be there stitching.

jacaranda said...

Is it a form of Sunshine and Shadows? Love your batiks.