Violet Blossom – a Mashup of a setting idea …

Posted by Sophie on March 9, 2016 in block lotto community | 3 comments

During the sneak peek, Jude shared a link to this design idea.

This is a commercial pattern called Flower Garden; if you’re interested, you can learn more about it here.

The flower in this block is similar to our Violet  …  and it has some similarities to a block Kate designed, which was our lotto block for April 2011 shown here.

I called it Modern Clover. Keep reading and I’ll show you why …

Jude’s message and the link to this little quilt started me thinking about the Modern Clover block and quilt design ideas for this month’s violet block.

You could just substitute a Violet block for the half-square triangle (HST) that forms the flower in the Modern Clover block and make 12 inch blocks, or add 3 inch HSTs and squares and create 9-inch blocks that looked almost like those in the little quilt, but WHAT IF … you changed up the scale and made leaves from 4-inch HSTs for a block that would be 10 inches, like this.

To make this 10 inch block, which I am thinking of as a mashup of the Violet and Modern Clover (Blossom) blocks or “Violet Blossom,” you’d start with a 6-inch Violet block, then add:

One 4 1/2-inch background square with a 1 inch strip of Leaf fabric inserted diagonally.

One pair of 4 inch (finished size) HSTs made from background + Leaf fabrics

Two 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch rectangles of background.

You might notice that in my block, the leaves are proportionally larger than the quilt in the link from Jude (and there is less background).  I prefer these proportions, but your mileage may vary …

If you win this month and like this “violet blossom” idea, you could make the quilt below, by turning your 41 of your six-inch violet blocks into ten-inch blocks like these, adding sashing strips, cut at 2 inch, and setting triangles and put them on point. Add a 5 inch border and your quilt would measure 81-inches square.

Circling back … the reason I wanted to call Kate’s design Modern Clover way back when was that it seemed to me a simplified version of a traditional block called Clover Blossom.  That block is also known as English Ivy. I had just gone to New York to see the red and white quilts in the show Infinite Variety and there was a quilt with a large Clover Blossom that had been one of my favorites.

It looks like this:

In case you don’t recognize them, this test block made from 9 of the bonus HSTs from the violet blocks I made for my Old MacDonald’s Mystery Sampler. It measures 4 1/2 inches square (finished size).

I don’t know why those tiny triangles fascinate me so, but they have managed to pull me out of my non-quilting rut and I am having fun with them. Stay tuned …

And that’s how one thing leads to another and often a quilt design idea or three in my head …