Super Summer Snippy Challenge - Part 7

"Summer, and the livin' is easy..." (Porgy and Bess version)

Finally it seems like summer has arrived here on the West Coast of Canada!  The country east of the rockies have been getting summer temperatures since early spring and we here on the coast have been blessed? with cool and rainy days.

Now, as promised a couple weeks back I discovered an unusual nine patch variation that I want to show you and make a quilt top for my Super Summer Snippy Challenge.   Beautiful sunshiny days though have conspired to keep me outdoor on my backyard deck and not working in the sewing room, so I have not put together a top this week.

As promised though I will show you how to put together the block I am working on and will eventually have as another quilt top to donate to my guilds charity quilts program.

I have seen this block pattern called Hot Cross Nine Patch, but I have not seen it in many places on the internet, so I will show you how it goes together as a block and when I am able to finish up the quilt top will try to give you the statistics of materials used.

Hot Cross Nine Patch Tutorial  (few words, lotsa pictures)

For the purposes of my project this block starts out with the scrappy cut 3.5 inch squares that is the basis of this series of quilt tops.

For 1 block:

1. You need 4 similar 3.5 inch squares of fabric and 5 - 3.5 inch squares of background fabric to make a regular 9 patch block...

2. next you need to cut 2.5 inch strips of your background fabric so that you have 2 strips that are 9.5 inches x 2.5 and 2 strips that measure 13.5 inches x 2.5 inches and sew the strips onto the nine patch block as shown before, this block now measures 13.5 inches square.

3.  Then you use your ruler to guide you in making two cuts across the block so that they are centered, so because the finished center square is 3 inches you will measure from the seam line 1.5 inches and cut a line through the middle of the block vertically, next without moving the block, cut in the same way across the block horizontally, shown below.

4.  Keeping the 4 quadrants  in order sew first the top two together with contrasting strips that are 2 inches wide -- I cut a number of these narrow strips the width of the fabric and then sewed them together so that I sew, then trim the strip to match the 1/4 block size. 

5.  Sew the other two quadrants to what is now a center strip. Once you have two sections, the next step is to sew the 2" wide strip across the middle - again, shown below.

 6. Finally sew together the last seam and you can see, the "HOT CROSS"!

As shown here, the block will need a bit of a trim to square it up.  This is the block I will be putting together to make the next Super Summer Snippy Challenge.

Wanna give it a try along with me?  This is a large block and 12 blocks put together should make a nice sized lap quilt.   Next week, I hope to show you the finished quilt top for this.

I might have to take my sewing machine out into the backyard deck because really it is SO hard to stay inside when there is a nice breeze and the sun is shining!