Virtual Quilting Bee Block #16 Tutorial

Welcome to Live a Colorful Life. I'm so happy to have you here as the next stop on Amy's Virtual Quilting Bee.

 Amy is one of my favorite blogging friends. We have spent minutes together, twice, at spring quilt market, first in Kansas City last year and then again in Portland this past spring. We always have grand plans to spend some quality time together, but if you have ever attended quilt market, you know that is hard to come by. It is a blur of activity. Someday...

Just a little bit about me. I have been quilting for about twenty years. I have been married for lots of years to my husband, whom I met in college. He totally supports this passion of quilting and helped me turn our never-used living room into a great sewing room. I love sewing with solids and selvages. I drink too much coffee and love rainy days, which are few and far between here in the central valley of California.

If you are new to the Virtual Quilting Bee you can see the previous fifteen blocks and get more general info about the Virtual Quilting Bee and how you can participate here.

Today we are going to make a block named Chiral Music. Quickly, here is the back story on how it got such a quirky name. As you can see, it is kind of a mirror image type of block. After I finished making it the other night, I sent a picture over to our son and daughter-in-law, wondering if they could come up with a snappy name, better than in-out, hello-goodbye, etc.

Almost immediately Aaron texted me back with "chiral music." I texted back, "did you mean 'choral'?" Nope. "Chiral" refers to a molecule that appears to be a mirror image but actually is not exactly superimposable. Got that? And "music" is kind of a play on word on the word I thought he meant, choral. I liked the name. So let me show you how easy this block is to construct.

From Fabric A (dark):
One 3" square
One 2 1/2" square
Three 1 1/2" by 2 1/2" rectangles

From Fabric B (medium):
One 3" square
Two 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" rectangles
One 1 1/2" x 8 1/2" rectangle

From Fabric C (light):
Two 3" squares
One 2 1/2" square
Two 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" rectangles
Three 1 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangles
One 1 1/2" x 8 1/2" rectangle

 (how did my cutting mat suddenly seem to become neon yellow??)

Cut all the 3" squares in half diagonally to make half square triangles (I like to oversize them just a bit, so I can trim them for accuracy).

Pair the two triangles from Fabric A and Fabric B each with a triangle from Fabric C. Sew. Press open.Trim each to 2 1/2".

Sew the three 1 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangles from Fabric A and Fabric C together along the long side. Press open.

Sew the two 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" rectangles from Fabric B and Fabric C together along the short side. Press open.

Lay out your block like this:

The center part of the block is a simple nine-patch. After you have that part sewn together and pressed (I pressed toward the half square triangles in the top and bottom row, and toward the center patch in the middle row, so they nest together nicely), then you are ready to add top and bottom segments, like this:

I pressed away from the nine-patch rows. Then you are ready to add the side segments, and press toward the side segments.

Done!

Be careful with your placement of the half square triangle blocks. I made my practice block out of Briar Rose, and stared at it, knowing it was wrong, but I couldn't figure it out right away:

 Make sure it looks like this:

I hope you enjoyed making this block. It looks so different in solid and print. Do you have a preference?

And the next time you and your friends are talking about molecules (because that happens all the time, right?), you can impress them by mentioning the asymmetrical chiral molecule.

Thanks for stopping by this week. I hope you will come back and stay awhile! Be sure to add your block to the Virtual Quilting Bee Flickr Group.

And because this is the final block tutorial for the Virtual Quilting Bee, I think that qualifies as a Friday Finish, so I'm linking up with crazymomquilts.