Week Four - New England Block

Sew A Long 2020

May 27

Hi there, hope your week has treated you well.

This week we are making a New England Block for our Sew A Long.

You have plenty of options of where you place your dark fabrics and what part of the block stands out to you. In the 6” block, the centre cross is highlighted with my red stripe - I really want a whole collection of red and cream quilts one day so that’s the colour way I’m using to make my 6” blocks.

In the 12” block, I have made the star points and centre square with the dark fabric and this changes the look of the block.

Also this week, we are making a block that has more sections to it than the previous blocks. This block is a 5 x 5 layout. You will need to press your seams in the right directions to butt those seams. What I do is make the 5 rows first, before any pressing. Then I take them all to the ironing board and work out which way each row needs to be pressed.

Have you been using the spray starch? If you don’t have any, then a hot dry setting on your iron also works wonders.

Click here for the PDF pattern

History

This block was also known as the 4X or Churn Dasher block, You can read here some of the history of this block. To be honest, I couldn’t find too much information but I always check what Barbara Brackman has written as she is an expert on the history of quilt blocks, a fantastic resource.