Dutch Rose {Swoon} Blocks

Some of the posts I’ve been writing for the blog have involved explorations of techniques (Half Square Triangles) and traditional Blocks (Log Cabins) used in a modern way and while brainstorming the next item I couldn’t get the 8 pointed star block we all know as Swoon out of my head. Some people are all Swooned out and anyone who makes this 80” x 80” quilt deserves a lie down! The popularity of this block though goes back a long way.

While watching Camille Roskelly’s class on Craftsy Pre-cut Piecing Made Simple, I learned that her famous Swoon pattern comes from a traditional Block called the Dutch Rose. Camille found it in an antique quilt, resized it up to a 24” block and simplified the piecing to make it from squares, half square triangles and flying geese.

Traditionally this block is made with diamonds and Y seams and lives in catalogues under the 8 pointed stars with 45 degree diamonds sections!  Barbara Brackman has it listed in her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns as the Rolling Star block from 1932 (page 461 if anyone has this book. You can buy a digital copy from the American Quilter’s Society here).

Jinny Beyer in her book The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns: More Than 4, 050 Pieced Designs for Quilters has the Dutch rose listed by the Ladies Art Company in 1897, making this design 117 years old! Not quite what you would call modern though in modern fabrics it just shines, doesn’t it?

It also goes by Star with Diamonds, Star of the East, Carpenters Wheel, Lone Star of Paradise, Morning Star, Double Star and Twinkling Stars. While having a rummage around the internet I found  a number of ways of making it.  Jinny Beyer has templates for 6”, 10” and 12” on her website here using the traditional method. McCall’s quilting has a 12” version using a specific colour layout and more modern piecing here and Double Nickel Quilts has way of making this block from Charm or 5” squares here. Did you know charms are called Nickel squares? 5 inch, 5 cents, makes sense to me!

My favourite that I found in my exploration is a Double Dutch Rose paper pieced pattern by Piece by Numbers. Definitely on my list to make!

A modification to the four corners of this block gives you the Star of Bethlehem from 1938 also called Jewels in a Frame and the Star of the Magi (ref. Jinny Beyer book above) and the Patterns from History website states there are 14 different star designs that use the Star of Bethlehem name including this one!

Whatever version you choose or whatever name you choose to call them these 8 pointed star blocks are hard to resist. Moda has chosen a simplified version that can be made from Layer cakes (72”) Charms (32”) or mini-Charms (12”) and have given the pattern away for free here. There is a blog hop going on at the moment to showcase new Moda fabrics for Autumn/Winter here if you want to see some lovely versions of this block. I really like this one at Fresh Figs. The layer cake version seems like a great and quick way to piece a quilt top!

If you have any Swoon blocks or quilts to share we’d love to see them on IG (#modernirishquilters) or on our Flickr or Facebook pages.

-Ruth

Variations on A Theme

Remember all those Half Square Triangles I made when exploring different ways to make them?  I thought I would open a challenge today to show that we modern quilters love traditional blocks just as much as modern blocks.  How many of these 16 blocks can you name?

Anybody used any of these in a quilt design?  We would love to see them on our Flickr Group or Facebook!

 Some more with variations on a theme!

Of course I made my practice HST from scraps and arranged and re-arranged them to get these variations.  Now I'm wishing I made them from a bunch of yardage or Fat Quarter Bundle as I love these fabrics in HST blocks.  Wouldn't they make a great sampler quilt?

Or number 15 in this last set as a whole quilt?  I think this is my favourite in the whole bunch!  What's your favourite HST block?

- Ruth

Trusty HSTs - How Do You Make Them?

How many ways can you make a Half Square Rectangle?  For such a simple thing it would seem a heck of a lot!  


My original idea for this exploration of HST’s was to go through 5 ways and make 16 HST’s, and to challenge you to play with layout but as I was brainstorming all the ways you can make them, this post got quite a bit bigger.  





Half Square Triangles (HST) are a basic building block in quilt construction and are incredibly versatile.  In this exploration today,  here’s some info on all the ways I found to make them.  If  I’ve left any out please let me know and hopefully you’ll find your favourite method in the following:

• Templates: You can use templates to make one at a time.  If you want to draw your own you can trace a template onto plastic and use this over and over again.  I can see this as being a good option if you wanted  to hand sew a project like the Farmers Wife or to use up scraps.  Personally I never do this, I have an aversion to templates unless they are for really odd shapes!  (I tried patchwork using templates at least 4 times when I was a teenager and gave up - it wasn’t until I saw charm squares and a rotary cutter nearly 3 years ago that I thought, I can do this!)

• Pre-printed foundation paper:  You use a paper pattern to give you the HST shape and you lay this on your fabrics placed right sides together.  You sew along the marked lines through the paper and cut afterwards.  Some types of pattern paper you don’t even have to remove afterwards!  I found this iron on one at Fat Quarter Shop and this CD full of them called Triangulations that you print as needed. There is a you tube video here.  Thangles also have a video showing how to use their pre-printed papers.   This makes it very easy to get straight lines and accurate pieces for gazillions of identical HST.  I never knew these existed but when I started looking I found lots of them.  Different papers for different sizes.   Of course you could draw your own too! 

• Inklingo have templates that you can print directly onto your fabric that give you lines to cut along.  Click on the link to see a video showing it in action.  No need for plastic templates or paper and again great for lots of identical HST’s.   Their pattern has the corners snipped and helps lining up the HST after cutting for sewing, plus the pattern is printed such that the sewing lines contain the bias so no bias edges are exposed.

• Die cutters:  If you have an AccuQuilt cutter like the Go Baby, you can use the HST die to cut out accurate shapes.  I don’t have one but I think I’d like one!  You need separate dies for the separate sizes but you can buy them in a pack.

• Cutting up squares:  My favourite way to make HST’s! 

• Cut a square in half exposing bias:  I used this method recently when making a rainbow Swoon block.  I had to try and figure out what fabric to put where and matching them up to make a few at at time was slightly head wrecking!  Far easier to take a square and cut it in half and then move the pieces where I wanted them.  The trick with these is to cut a square Finished Size of your HST+7/8” so, If I wanted a 3” finished unit (3.5” unfinished) I’d cut a square at least 3 7/8” to start with, then cut it in half to create two identical HST’s.

• Drawn line method to contain bias:  I hate bias, I really have to be careful not to stretch things out of shape so I use starch and use lots of pins.  This method keeps the bias in the seam and I don’t have to worry about it!

Take 2 squares, again finished size +7/8” and place them right sides together.  I find myself that I’m not perfect on all my seams so it’s better for me to start with finished size +1”.  It does mean I have to trim them all but it makes cutting and the maths easier!  Draw a line across the diagonal and sew 1/4” seam both sides of this line.  If you struggle with this or don’t have a 1/4” piecing foot mark the lines to sew on.  Once sewn cut in half along the centre diagonal line and you have 2 identical HST’s.

• Make 4 at a time (QST really!) by sewing all around and cut along both diagonals, back to bias again!  I saw this method for the first time on the Missouri Star Quilt Company you tube page.  The maths on this one is a little different.  I put up cheat sheets on my blog for this and the drawn line methods if you are interested.

• Make 8 at a time variation of drawn line (Finished size +1”) x2.  This is very like the paper patterns above but you draw two lines on the fabric to get you started.  Again sew 1/4” on either diagonal line, cut in half along the red line, both sides then again along the blue line to get 8 identical HST’s.

• Strip methods:  Another one I didn’t know existed!  Very handy for using Jelly Rolls!
  • Drawn line, similar to squares above but using strips you can get a lot of identical HST’s in one sewing seam! You do need to mark the fabric on the diagonal to give yourself a line to sew 1/4" away both sides and on the vertical to cut into squares and then into HST's.

• Tube method exposing bias edges found on jmday.com. I found this one a bit odd to work with.  You sew two strips right sides together along both edges with a 1/4" seam to make a tube.  Then align the ruler along the seam and the point just inside the seam on the opposite side.  I found it easiest to align the strip on the 45 degree on the cutting mat and measure across to keep square.

 

• Strip method containing bias found on Quilts and Other Good Things.  This was another odd one, cutting strips on the bias to start with and then sewing them together  to cut squares for lots of identical HST's.   Anyone ever used this method before?

• Specialty Rulers : Wow there are lots of these!  Does anyone use a specialty ruler for making HST’s? If so what do you recommend?  BlocLoc rulers are great for trimming afterwards but there are other rulers to help with cutting them in the first place.  Some of the ones I found are:

 

• Fons and Porter Half & Quarter Ruler by Omnigrid, video by Connecting Threads on You Tube.  No Maths involved at all, you work with the finished size HST you want for your project.

• EZ Jelly Roll Ruler by Kimberly Einmo

• EZ angle Ruler by Sharon Hultgren

So after all that I now have a bunch of HST’s, what to do with them... I think out of all these above, I’m leaning towards the drawn line method using a square to make 8 at a time.  What’s your favourite way to make HST’s? 

-Ruth