Patriotic Pinwheels From Scraps

It seems I can’t get away from playing with my scraps lately. You may remember a few weeks ago –  I ended up with a 1/2 yard of patriotic fabric made from the leftovers of two “Quilts of Honor” tops I’d made. This is what that “chunk” looked like (click here to read that post):

The week after I made it Patched Lives Quilt Guild had Jan Bretzel give a lecture titled “Making Quilts that Look Complicate but are Not”. One of the quilts she showed was made with a simple piecing technique she shared – and I had to try it!

So I cut my patriotic “schnibblework” into 10″ squares, along with 10″ squares of a solid red fabric. I layered 1 square of each, right sides together,

sewed all the way around this square with a 1/4″ seam allowance,

cut on both diagonals,

pressed the resulting new squares open,

and voila – a lovely pinwheel block!

So far I have 3 blocks made and I can’t wait to make the rest. Each one is so interesting because of the unexpected nature of the scrappy squares. I’ll post a picture of the pinwheel quilt top – when I get it put together.

Thanks Jan, for a great lecture – and for teaching me a fun new technique!