Swoooooooooooon

Well as you probably all know by now, Katy's swoon-a-long, using Camille Roskelly's wonderful pattern is becoming this year's BIG THING.  Go here to join the group if you want to swoonalong too.  I've jumped in with both feet and am loving this block.  I decided to scale it up to a mahusive 36" square and make a quilt for my neice using just four blocks plus some sashing and it will come to 79" square which is a pretty good size really.  I have already decided to send it out to be long arm quilted but more of that in another post.

I scaled the block up so that each finished square in the design will be 4 1/2".  And I re-drew the block in squared paper so that it was made up of 64 squares (many split into HSTs).  Camille's pattern is done differently - and probably 99% of you would say better - in that she uses flying geese, larger squares, rectangles etc. to save on sewing seams.  I divided it into 64 squares (i) because I find it easier to cut just two shapes for a whole block; (ii) because I find it easier to keep track of what I'm piecing it's one great big nine patch (well 64 patch); and (iii) because I like the look of seams going around every square.  In the picture above, you can see how I broke the block up into squares.

Because the blocks are significantly bigger than in the original design, I re-drew the block with four main colours in the star, rather than two.  With squares cut at 5" for the plain squares and 5 1/2" for pairs of HSTs, each colour can be cut from one FQ.  Block 2 of 4 is ready to piece, waiting on the dining room table patiently.

Are you swooning along?  If so, how many blocks are you making?  What is the quilt going to be for?  What fabrics are you using?