desperately daft housewife block

Jane asked me to contribute to her desperate housewives quilt blocks feature, which I excitedly set about doing before reading any instructions or paying any attention to to what size the block should be.

Hmm. Mistake.

Instead of making an 8" finished block I assumed a 12" finished block was the way to go.

You know what assume does? It makes an Ass of U and Me.

Now, I could resize my block but it'd involve highly confusing weird measurements and so I'll share it here instead (and I'll make something else that works for Jane - sigh).

This block has the exact same half square triangle units as the scythe pillow I posted a little while ago. I wanted to show how versatile the humble half square triangle is, and how much fun you can have with just a little bit of playing around.

Can you spot something wrong in this picture?

Top left hand quadrant & bottom right quadrant? Not facing the same way?





Yep - that's better;




Currently my diet of coffee and not enough sleep isn't serving me well.

First up you need 2" thangles*, a fat 1/8 of 2 different prints (I'm using vintage modern by Bonnie and Camille) and a FQ of background fabric (I'm using pure elements in ash by Art Gallery) (you will have plenty of leftovers)
*You can get thangles from here (US) or here (UK)

Follow the directions on the thangles packet and cut strips, layering your fabrics right sides together and pinning the thangles paper on top.

You need to cut;
3 strips from fabric 1 (2.5" x 10")
3 strips from fabric 2 (2.5" x 10")
6 strips from background fabric (2.5" x 10")
4 squares 2.5"



If you lay your light fabric on top of the darker fabric it means when it comes to pressing you'll automatically press to the dark fabric. Cool, huh?



Reduce your stitch length, because you're sewing onto paper. Sew on the dashed lines, and cut on the solid lines. Press to the dark fabric, and trim off that little dog ear.



Tear tear tear your papers off.



Arrange your HST units like this....



NO! That's the scythe pillow block!

Arrange them like this!!!



See - same units, different layout = lots of fun to be had (I don't get out much, do I?)

The block is made up of the same unit 4 times, like this;



Set your stitch length back to normal. Sew each unit together in rows and press your seams open to reduce bulk;



Alternatively - sew the 2 different fabrics into 2 different units, like this -

A; (as above)



and B;



All you've done differently is flip the HST in the middle of the unit the other way. One tiny little change, and you have a whole new look;




Or (of course, you can accidentally sew the block up wrong like below...and not notice until 2 people point it out to you. And then spend about 5 minutes trying to see where you went wrong).




Ta-da!!!!

You can use regular pieced half square triangles too - you need to cut 8 squares from fabric 1 (3" each), 8 squares from fabric 2 (3") and 16 squares from your background fabric (3"). Plus the 4 corner squares at 2.5".
When you've made your HSTs simply trim them down to 2.5" each.

I'm off to make something for Jane that measures 8" when finished now. Silly me. One day I'll learn to read instructions before I dive straight in.

Or maybe I'll just go to bed earlier in future?