15 minute monthly blocks - May and June



I finally decided to make the block of the month for 15 Minute Play blog.  The above block is the one for May.  First you have to make enough fabric (about 9" X 15").  Then you cut it into the parts you need, cut your background, then piece it all together.  It is a really stunning block.  I wasn't going to make one, but every time someone finished one and posted it to the blog, I loved it.  I had a handful of batik scraps laying around that I have wanted to play with for a couple of weeks, but just haven't done anything with them so I thought to myself, okay, this quilt is going to be from batiks.  The background will be pastels/lights and the made fabric from scraps and bits and pieces of my batiks.  Now that I have a semi plan in my head, I wrote down what size blocks and a brief description of how to put this block together and started in last night.  I pulled a darker gray out of my stash for the background, but didn't like it as well - okay, it hadn't made it into the drawer yet, it was laying out waiting to go into the drawer and I saw it and picked it up.  There wasn't enough contrast so I knew it wouldn't work.  I opened the batik lights drawer and wow I have a lot of pale yellow batiks.  That is all I could see when I first opened the drawer.  I rooted around and found this gray.  I love it.  The star just jumps out from the background.  My camera was downstairs, so I knew I would wait to post it until today.  This morning I got on the blogs to just read through and noticed that June's block tutorial had already been posted.  How did I miss that?  I don't know, but I did.  Maybe I didn't think of it as being the June block and thought of it as just something another person posted.  I don't know.  Anyway, I copied down the directions for this one, gathered all the bits and pieces I didn't use from the May block, added some more fabric so I had just enough to cut out my squares for the made fabric section. 

The triangles of the background was simple, just squares cut in half diagonally.  I cut strips for the other ones and followed the directions, but the first pieces didn't turn out right.  I measured and measured and it still didn't turn out right.  So, with the second strip  I decided not to cut it first.  I would sew on the made fabric triangle and then trim the background at the right angle needed.  That worked great, except for two of my triangles I sewed them on the wrong way.  Thank goodness this batik doesn't have a definite right or wrong side.  I simply unsewed, flipped the background piece and sewed it back on the correct way.  That was a simple solution, but it took leaving the house and going to get a coke for my mind to think clearly enough to figure it out.  The frustration and the fact that I don't have cokes here at my house is what sent me out on a Sunday afternoon for a coke at my Dairy Queen.  I really don't like getting drinks on the weekend from there.  Don't get me wrong, it is my favorite place to get a drink - especially during happy hour which is one of the only times I go - but on the weekend is when all the new people start working and some of them don't have a clue!  I try and be patient and I know they probably don't like the people at the window telling them that what they are doing isn't correct, but come on!  I know how much my drink is at happy hour - I buy one almost every weekday.  So, don't tell me it's ____ when I know it's ____.  At least this one today after giving me the same price twice and I kept saying no, that's not right, had the decency to say, well, let me see.  She finally figured out what was wrong - her helper that took the order didn't put the discount in the computer.  Poor thing, she even had to re-make my drink because she didn't do it right the first time.  That happens all the time with the new people.  They don't listen to you tell them what you want.  They just hear part of it and then move on to making what they thought they heard.   Okay, climbing off my soap box and getting back to my quilt blocks.  This second one, the pinwheel hasn't been squared and trimmed.  Below is both blocks next to each other on my wall.  Looking good.  This will be an outstanding quilt when all the blocks are made.