The Anvil Block

As I showed a week or so ago, here is the 12" Anvil block.  I am back to the QOV blocks.  I am trying to do a few of these if I have an hour to waste, or if I finish a quilt before it is time for my kids to get home.  It is a better use of my time than staring at facebook!

I picked up a few of the patriotic prints and solids after having a discussion with the Colorado QOV coordinator.  She relayed to me that their preference really is the red, white and blue blocks.  It does make me wonder why we have a modern gray colorway at all, but that was not my decision.  I will finish the blocks in that color that I have cut, but not cut any more.  Yesterday, I picked up 3 yds of dark blue and 1 yard of three others. My fabric store has a horrible selection of this type fabric, but this will make a bunch.  How many, I wonder??...we'll see.

Here is the cutting instructions for the Anvil...

You'll need the following of the "feature" fabric...one 8-1/2" square
From the background...one 8-1/2" square, one 6-1/2" square and four 3-1/2" squares

I made my version of a Thangle, scanned it in, and I can print it as many times as I need.  This is just easier than drawing the line across a zillion 3-7/8" squares (which is what is drawn on the page).  So, take the two large squares, put them good sides together and pin the pattern I have here to them.  I can email this to anybody interested.  If you don't use this then you need four 3-7/8" squares of the background per block.  Pin it a few times, and sew on the dashed lines.  Use a very short stitch so removing the paper is easy.

It should look like this.

With your rotary (I really don't care how the paper dulls mine...I paper piece and it is still relatively sharp), cut on the solid lines, making 8 triangles.

Remove papers...this comes off very easily.  And press open into HST's.

Arrange like this, and assemble.  With stripes you can either let the stripe alignment go willy-nilly or let some go vertical while others go horizontal.  Doesnt really matter.

The end result is a nice large pile of blocks to make.  I think this is around 40 or so.  It's going to snow Wednesday so I have a lofty goal to get through half of this! (he he).  If you are curious, the 3yd background I had cut into 26 blocks

Go forth and sew :-)