More Quilt Block Ideas

I hope that you’re enjoying stitching along with the “Block of the Month” series here on the Polka Dot Chair!  Today I thought I’d share with you a few more quilt block ideas and catch you up a bit on the progress that I’ve made with my personal blocks for the series!

To view all the posts in the Block of the Month Series, click here! 

Hi there! I just wanted to pop in here and chat a bit more about the blocks that I made for the December Block of the Month.  I was having some camera trouble after Christmas and only posted illustrations of the December block, now that the issues are resolved I thought I’d share with you a few photos of the finished block. I also wanted to chat a bit about my thought process when designing the block.

I realized that over the course of the last few years I have picked up quite a few tips for constructing Half Square Triangles (HST’s). Enough I’ve decided, for an entire blog post, so watch for that next week. In the meantime if YOU have any tips for stitching HST’s please share them in the comments, I’d love to include a bunch of reader tips (with proper credit) in the post.

Okay, now onto the December block.  I want the design of the finished quilt to have a good balance of blocks with a lot of negative space and blocks that are visually a bit more heavy. Meaning, not as much background.  The star and plus blocks had quite a bit of negative space, while the pinwheel block did not.  To keep things balanced I designed this block to have more impact and color than some of the previous blocks.

I did a little bit of finagling in Photoshop and laid out the quilt a bit so that you can start to get a vision for what it will look like when it’s done.  (minus any sashing or cornerstones)…  It will be a true sampler quilt, since each block will be unique.

These are blocks from my PINK quilt. I didn’t start out intending it to be mostly pink, but I think it’s going that way and I kinda like it, so I’m just sticking with it.  Do you recognize the bunnies in the blocks? Those are from Wonderland, I am cutting up the strike off sample fabric and using it everywhere I get the chance! This block, as well as the next one I’ll show you, are a monochromatic color scheme. The fabrics I selected were all variations of the same color.

For the block for my “low volume background” quilt I added a strip of yellow just to break it up a bit.

other blocks in this quilt:

Here is another monochromatic block, stitched up in all green fabrics. It’s a block from my Christmas quilt.  I am debating about stopping this quilt at 9 blocks, we will have to see how the year progresses before I decide.  So far it’s turning out to be one of my favorites.

other blocks from this quilt:

For the block for my teenage sons quilt I decided instead of a monochromatic color scheme, to make them intentionally different colors. I thought about it a bit like creating my own striped fabric.  I love how the orange and navy’s are working together and so far my son approves (fingers crossed that continues).

other blocks from this quilt (I still need to stitch up the November block for this quilt):

I hope that you’re enjoying making the blocks. I’ve been doing my best to answer all of your questions as they come in via email, facebook and the blog.  Feel free to leave questions in the comments section, I’ll answer them there, then everyone will have the benefit of an answer!

We are now ⅓ of the way done!!  If you’re behind, don’t stress!!! The blocks are all pretty simple and you should be able to catch up quickly!