St. Patrick's Day Project!

Are you ready to get started? I'll post this in a couple sections. The first section I'm posting now will get us through making the shamrock blocks. Later tonight, I'll post directions for sashing the blocks and bringing the project up to the point of the ribbon and other borders. Tomorrow we'll finish the piecing with piecing the ribbon border and outer borders. Let's start!

Note that the directions below will make a smallish tabletopper/wallhanging--around 24" depending on the size of your borders. I will also give cutting measurements for making a larger project, twice the size, by making each block larger. This will give you an end project that will be a nice size for a tablecloth or small lap quilt--around 48" square. The cutting directions for the larger quilt will follow the smaller cutting directions and are in parenthesis. IF YOU ARE MAKING THE SMALLER VERSION, IGNORE MEASUREMENTS IN PARENTHESIS!

We'll start with our green and background fabrics. For my background, I'm using a cream/neutral, so for purposes of these directions, I'll refer to it as neutral, but you may chose to use a different color. Just make sure you have enough contrast between the green and the background color.

For this step, you'll need to cut:

GREEN:

Twelve (12) 3-1/2" squares

Four (4) 1" x 5-1/2" strips

NEUTRAL:

Forty (40) 1-1/2" squares

Four (4) 3-1/2" squares

(FOR LARGER QUILT:

GREEN:

Twelve (12) 6-1/2" squares

Four (4) 1-1/2" x 10" strips

NEUTRAL:

Forty (40) 2-1/2" squares

Four (4) 6-1/2" squares)

We'll start with constructing the stem pieces first. You'll make four of these blocks.

Cut the four neutral 3-1/2" (6-1/2") squares on one diagonal, so each square will be divided into two triangles.

On the bias edge of four of the triangles, sew a green strip, centering the triangle on the length of the strip (the strip will extend about 1/4" above and below the triangle).

Press the seam allowance to the green strip. You should have four pieces that look like the photo above.

Add the remaining triangle pieces to the other side of the green strip and press, again pressing the seam allowance to the green. Using your ruler and rotary cutter, square up the blocks to 3-1/2" (6-1/2") and trim away excess from stems.

Using a pencil, draw a diagonal line on four of the 1-1/2" (2-1/2") squares. (I use the masking tape you see as a lining-up point rather than drawing lines on smaller pieces like these small squares.) Sew one square to one end of each of your stem blocks.

Trim excess (you may chose to only trim the center layer or both center and bottom layers). Press into place (see blocks above the center example).

In the same way you added the square to the bottom of the stem block, add squares to three of the four corners of each of the 3-1/2" (6-1/2") green squares. Trim and press into place.

Lay out three "leaf" blocks and a stem block as shown. These will be sewn together four-patch fashion and pressed.

Make four shamrock blocks. At this stage, each block will measure 6-1/2" (12-1/2").

Check back later this evening for the next step: Adding sashing to complete the center.

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