Catching Up on 1800's BOM

I have received several emails asking whether I was still doing the 1800s Block of the Month.  I hang my head in shame and have come up with many excuses!  Yes, I'm still doing them and I actually have done the two missing ones (July and August.)  But, watch out here come the excuses, both times I was working on them I had computer issues either right after or, as in August, while trying to do them.  I wrote the directions, sent them to the guild web site where they were published as usual on the second Saturday of the month and then promptly decided I didn't have time or ability to post to my blog.  

Ok, everyone, all together now shame on me!  It has been exceedingly gratifying to keep getting emails asking me if I was still doing the blocks.  Thank you all for asking!  I've been sending folks to the guild website so they could get caught up.  I am also getting off my duff and posting the July information here.  And, I've reread it and added some info so if you are just saving the information you might want to save this post also.  

July’s block is Double T.  There are several variations on the T placement of this block.  I’ve used a traditional one shown in two colors.  I’ve also seen the block with 3 colors – background and pairs of opposite blocks matching in color.  I made my sample block several months ago based on a quilt in one of my books.  Fast forward to July.  I’ve had a hard time finding the block made the way I’ve shown it on the internet.  Finally I found a doll or crib quilt in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum.  You can find the picture of this quilt by going to  http://www.quiltstudy.org/collections/search.html  and typing in Double T in the keyword search.  It was made in the late 1800’s so it definitely fits in with our quilt. 

Cutting:

Decide if you want to make a two color or a three color block. The directions are for two colors.  To make it a three color block you would make half of the blocks with background and color 1 and the other half with background and color 2.  Again, there are a lot of half square triangles in this but by now you should be a pro!  My cutting directions are cut large so you can square your units down to the correct size.  If you would rather use thangles, triangles on a roll or your preferred method I’ll include the finished sizes of each size half square triangle.

Cut  2 squares of background fabric 4 ¼” (Remember I’m adding extra to cut your unit to the perfect size.)

Cut 2 squares main color 4 ¼” (For 3 color – cut 1 in Color 1 and 1 in Color 2.)

Cut 10 squares 2 ½” in background color

Cut 10 squares 2 ½” in main color (For 3 color – cut 5 in Color 1 and 5 in Color 2.)

Sewing: 

Draw a diagonal line on the back of all the colored squares.  Chain sew ¼” from each side of the line. Cut on the line.  Iron the seam to the dark fabric. This block is made in quadrants so make each one the same for the two color quilt or make pairs in the 3 color quilt.

The large half square triangles are 3 ½” unfinished, 3” finished.  The small half square triangles are 2” unfinished,  1 ½” finished.

Arrange your pieces as in the picture. Sew two half square triangle units together and then sew the three half square triangles together.  Sew the two units to the larger half square triangle, press to the dark.  Each quadrant is 5” unfinished, 4 1/2” finished.

Place as indicated in the picture.

If using two colors and the background fabric place the matching colors diagonally opposite.

Any questions?  Feel free to email me at brsinstitches@gmail.com.

I recently read about a converter that takes web pages (think about blogs) and converts the pages to PDF.  How cool is that.  I have lots of web pages in my favorites because of a set of instructions or a tutorial.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to turn them into a PDF rather than hoping the information stays available?  I wish I could give credit to whoever mentioned this but I have no recollection.... but here is the web site:  http://www.web2pdfconvert.com/  All you do is copy the web address you want to convert. Then hit the convert button.  Depending on length and the number of graphics it does take some time but not really all that much.  Don't do like I did and click off the page once it comes up.  This is a free version with ads and I didn't realize that the red boxes were giving me options on what to do with the document. The choices were to download, share with Google docs and store and share PDF.  I chose to download it and opened it from my download file.  Terrific.  Just don't forget to save it once you've downloaded it.  This should be fabulous for me!  

I'm about out of power on my laptop so I will end this here.  Give me until early next week and I will post the August blocks. (Yep, there are two.) 

Happy Quilting All!