Orphan Blocks From The Class Folder

In my search for more orphan blocks, I looked through my file drawer and found a useable group in my Paper Piecing Class folder. I taught this class to many, many ladies in Colorado and Illinois and so I have lots of half sewn pieces. The red bits are the start of another heart; ladies in Paper Piecing classes always want to make hearts and I like them too. There are a lot of fun ways to divide them. The blue pointed bits belong to a square that EQ7 calls Priscilla.  I have also seen it called World Without End. I really like it’s scrappiness.

Here is the EQ7 rendering that I found in the folder. After some fabric auditioning, I decided the middle should be just one fabric. After piecing the four points, it looked  busy enough without 2 more fabrics in the center and…

…I chose one that related to another of the orphan blocks.

And here is another square that paper piecers are anxious to learn to sew – it’s generally known as a twisted log cabin or spinner. This sunflower one I made when we lived in Shanghai, China for a class I was teaching to some Japanese women. They loved this version and had or make it exactly like mine.

This one I found partially sewn in the folder and finished up the last few rows. It will go nicely in the orphan block quilt.

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When googling around looking for information on several blocks, I came across the most amazing resource! It’s the Quilter’s Design Board on Jinny Beyer’s website. It lists over 200 quilt squares and there are templates for several sizes of each square as well as piecing diagrams. When I began quilting, one of my first purchases was Jinny Beyer’s The Quilter’s Album of Blocks and Borders and it’s still my favorite resource. As I fiddled with the online design board, I realized that it contains many squares from the original book! Needless to say, this site is now on my bookmark bar.