More BOM blocks

I made some small progress this weekend; small but steady! That's the way to get back into the swing of things.

First, I ripped apart my horribly unsquare mini-Valentine wallhanging, squared it up, and repieced it with three layers of my thickest cotton to make it into a potholder. Were three layers necessary? Who knows, I've never made a potholder before, but it's about a cm thick now so I bet it can withstand any heat!

Before, in all its un-square glory

After: much poofier (look at those curved corners!) but hopefully much more square

Next I completed the April block for my guild BOM (we are following the 2010 layer cake BOM from Moose on the Porch quilts). I also typed up instructions for it (they have to be shortened to fit on a page or less in our newsletter). This one was a fun design, although that purple stripe was a much more busy background choice than I realized.

Side note: my cat is trying her best to prevent me from blogging! She settled on my lap, placed her head on my hand, and now stretched her arm out to block the keyboard. Thanks a lot! Definitely doing it on purpose. Here is photo proof:

Kitty blog block!

Finally, I completed the May block today. This was a great block. It only required two colors and it was incredibly simple. I was actually really impressed because it started with a simple nine patch, and a single cut turned it into something totally different!

normal nine patch

Look at how cool these blocks are when you cut the nine patch in half!

orientation 1

orientation 2

Finished block. I wanted to highlight the pink more than the gray.

Working with a layer cake has been a fun challenge. I am used to picking out all my own fabrics and thus am never challenged to "make it work" as Tim Gunn would say with fabrics or colors that I don't consider perfect. Figuring out color pairings has been interesting in this quilt, and it's also been a learning experience to see which colors end up standing out the most in each block (for example those purple strips in the April block...I thought just because they had white in them they would be a good background but I didn't think about that bold pattern!)  I think I would enjoy working with more layer cakes in the future as I find them more versatile than jelly rolls or charm squares.

Onto the next block!