This week's block can really be interpreted SO MANY different ways so I just picked a few for color studies. But first, linking to Janet's blog for the pattern if you haven't gotten it already:

Half Square Triangles. Lots of them. I think it's interesting that Janet's block size uses one size of half square triangles no matter which size block you are making for Moda Blockheads. So if you are making a 4" block you will just have fewer rows. If you are making a bigger block, they are the same size pieces, just more of them and you add rows. I am making 8" blocks so I've only done color studies with the configuration for 8". I'm sure you can imagine more or less!

I've started with the basic idea that Janet has on her instructions. Zig Zags have light and dark sections with solids running in between as a solid chevron color. The image next to it is a similar idea but with a scrappier mix of colors and the inside chevrons using different lights and darks. I've got a row of dark green triangles that crops the zig zag on the outer row. If you don't "see" it, squint your eyes to see the banding. The last image on the first row plays with light towards the center and darker colors around the outside perimeter.

On the second row I've put light in the middle and am gradually making the colors darker going towards the top and bottom. And with that last one, I started playing with a vertical band within the half square triangles and bringing a column of arrow points down. I thought this was pretty fun so how about if the whole image did a play of contrasts like that? 

Keep in mind that the half square triangles are all still going in the same direction as diagrammed originally. Its just playing with the placement of light and dark. I see arrows going up and down in vertical motion with a row of dark blues between. Or even zig zags in the background (large) behind the columns. Or how about we make the separating columns in color? On the second row I've rotated between light and dark arrow heads by column, all lined up. And the last image staggers the placement of the arrow head in the dark row AND brings in another color. Because the arrow heads are made from half square triangles and not flying geese, they feel more dimensional in their light and dark subtle variances. 

This image keeps the chevron zig zags and plays with the half square triangles in the center as a composition within a composition. You could use flying geese for the perimeter blocks or still play with the subtlety through scrappier colors and breaking up the solid zig zags with accents. 

One more...you would need about 8 shades of blue to do this. I started with white on the right and paired it with really light blue under and in the row next to it. As I moved left I kept pairing the triangle with a darker shade and making it one of the triangles in the next column (the pieces I added are in that right column). I get my illusion of zig zag with a green and light center band, with just two shades of green and the white and lightest blue. It would be tough to have enough shades of blue for this but I wonder if it could work with ombre fabrics??

My actual block will be coming soon and will be my first block for my gray and white row. I will be looking through my leftover half square triangle box and bag. I sew an extra seam often when making snowball blocks or flying geese and rummage through for times like this to see if I have some ready pieces that might just need a little extra trimming to be the right size. The other thing that would be great for this week is Triangle Paper! I didn't know about that until I did Moda Blockheads last year and read Corey Yoder's blog about it. When I have a lot of half square triangles to make it sure makes a difference in efficiency! Have fun with your half square triangles this week!

More Moda Blockheads Designers:
7.8 – Janet Clare - we are here!
7.15 – Jen Kingwell
7.22 – Joanna Figueroa
7.29 – Corey Yoder
8.5 – Sherri McConnell
8.12 – Betsy Chutchian
8.19 – Jan Patek
8.26 – Brigitte Heitland 
9.2 – Lisa Bongean
9.9 – Lissa Alexander
9.16 – Laurie Simpson
9.23– Vanessa Goertzen
9.30 – Stacy Iest Hsu
10.7 – Robin Pickens

I've got a lot to cover today so keep reading! There is a book giveaway included from Martingale at the end! New block pattern, color studies and book giveaways...sounds like a good Wednesday to me!

I'm very excited to share my block this week "CORNER GARDEN"! This block came out of the leaves in my Bird Talk quilt with a desire to do a simplified floral bloom. I think this block would be adorable in the corners of a pieced border of a quilt, plus it plays off the 4 corners of the block, thus the CORNER part of the garden name. The pattern is here in the gray link box right under this paragraph, but keep reading for color play and a BOOK GIVEAWAY from Martingale Publishers!

Big square flower blooms and leaves....simple in flat colors or you can try them with a color ramp from light to dark. Change up the colors and contrast from one bloom to the next and switch up the leaf colors. I also played with the negative and positive shapes in the last one, with a change in leaf backgrounds too. 

Since the corners of the pattern are made up with stitch and flip squares, why not try greens to the center to make a base for the flower bud with two of the corners? And you can play with varying shades of color to give the illusion of angle and perspective on the flower sides. The bottom images also play with the rectangles that border the leaves. If you make part of those the leaf colors it creates an image of stems weaving together in a flower twist.

Then I started to break down the shapes to be less literal as flowers, and to emphasize the triangles to the sides of the leaves. They start to look like supergraphic stripes and boxed in angled stripes vs leaves. I also explored a blue/cream/green palette. The last image starts to play off the faceted corners of the octagonal shapes.

And this last one breaks down the shapes even more to the churn dash idea and graduated stripes. These feel graphic and can work well if you are more focused on shapes and don't want blocks that suggest flowers and literal objects. 

I think this block has lovely possibilities to explore pairs and reflected units, playing off rainbow colors or just simple groupings.

These are my all-Thatched and scrappy versions of Corner Garden. The scrappy one uses Abby Rose and Dandi Annie plaid with Cream and Tangerine Thatched. These are 8" blocks. I tend to make my corner pieces a little larger and trim them down to size. And if all the HST corners are the same, I make my HST with an 8-at-a-time method vs individually.

The 4" block I made in V& Co Ombre Confetti. I just love doing these little blocks!

And I thought it would be fun to try making a block from strip/string quilt pieces. The block below is a 12" block using strips from Solana, Dandi Annie, Painted Meadow, Sweet Pea & Lily, Blushing Peonies and Abby Rose. I used the Ombre Confetti for centers since I thought the dots reminded me of big pollen filled flowers.  There are lots of ways to have fun with this block!

The other exciting piece of news today is the Martingale giveaway of some of the Moda All-Stars books! You can enter to win a digital download version of one of the quilt books. I am taking names here on my blog to be entered into a random sweepstakes for a digital copy of Lucky Charm Quilts. Sales of this Moda All-Stars book benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand, a Foundation for kids with childhood cancer and has funded over 1,ooo research projects. TO ENTER TO WIN A DIGITAL COPY OF THIS BOOK, enter a comment below telling me your favorite color to sew with! I'll be drawing a winner on Friday and will contact the person through their information on the blog comment. Thank you for supporting the All-Stars books that benefit wonderful charities!

Who doesn't love adorable house quilt blocks? I love them! And the simplicity of these lovely homes from Stacy makes them a versatile and fun block to do. To get Stacy's block pattern, visit her blog here:

Color studies for this week are pretty straightforward since I think the houses are so cute as houses and I just did some different play with keeping my neighborhood consistent or varied in colors. First off, the houses look modern and minimalist when just done as the shapes in all a single color. Start adding in different colors for doors and roofs and the houses become more dimensional and have more character. I tried Fall colors or a mix of fun pink, purple, orange and brown colors with variety in my sky blues and separate roof browns. What if the houses are all from a snowy village with night blue skies? Or a Christmas street with red and green houses with snow topped roofs and one with the snow falling softly. However you decide to do your houses, I imagine they will reflect some of YOUR neighborhood.

Here is a little fun extra play with the blocks. These are houses rotating around by the roofs or bases. I think of it as traveling around the block. All of a sudden we see arrows and more interesting shapes from the flying geese and those triangles. 

My blocks this week use the brown colorways. Since I don't have many browns in my collections I've used ombre confetti by V & Co for my print blocks with an Abby Rose orange door. 
Have fun building your neighborhood this week. And guess what...next week is MY BLOCK again! I'm so excited to share it with you. Be sure to check back next Wednesday!
​
Visit other Blockheads designers:
6.24 – Stacy Iest Hsu<–We are Here
7.1 – Robin Pickens
7.8 – Janet Clare
7.15 – Jen Kingwell
7.22 – Joanna Figueroa
7.29 – Corey Yoder
8.5 – Sherri McConnell
8.12 – Betsy Chutchian
8.19 – Jan Patek
8.26 – Brigitte Heitland 
9.2 – Lisa Bongean
9.9 – Lissa Alexander
9.16 – Laurie Simpson
9.23– Vanessa Goertzen

Happy Moda Blockheads day! This weeks cheery block is at Vanessa Goertzen's blog:

With a name like Lucky Penny, how could I not think of coppery orange colors? Maybe mixed with grays from other change with it? Silver and copper...gray and orange...time for color play!

This block is just FUN like gumballs in bright colors! The little stitch and flip corners make friendly curved pieces that can play with random color in spotty placement or lining up the balls in rows or playing with the balls in formation on an angle. I started with all the same color stitch and flip corners and started to introduce other colors to give those corners their own sparkly personality.

​In the second row I looked at the center stitch and flip unit being light/white while the other corners were darker colors. Combined with the colors of the snowball blocks in the center 4 pieces it really calls attention to that center spot. It is also interesting to carry those light corners out as little bows out to the corners. I kept the middle and right second row images completely symmetrical and tried the outer ring of pieces in light or dark shades. I

n the bottom row the image on the left shows using all the same repeating stitch and flip color pairs with mostly white snowball blocks. I've emphasized one block in there with a soft color surrounding it. The other two in the last row could be done in all white or in low volume fabrics with the color coming mostly from the stitch and flip corners. I love how the last one really becomes a composition about the little diamonds and you hardly see the snowballs.

For my own blocks, I liked the colors arranged in a random way and felt that had a playful energy. I used the orange fabrics from Abby Rose to make my scrappy block, using Burgundy from Thatched to make the dark corners that really make the orange prints pop.

But I was also interested in making the low volume version of the block and decided to make a 4" block with my playful colors in the stitch and flip corners.

I'm not exactly the most accurate and patient when it comes to making a 4" block with lots of little pieces. I think my block should be renamed "Wonky Penny"! The seam ripper is there because I did rip out my rows and resewed them...believe it or not, this is the improved one! I decided I was just fine with the imperfections on this one and I kind of like the personality it has. Those small blocks sure are cute!

If you want to refer back to other color studies for Moda Blockheads I've made a page that shows an overview of them. The "COLOR STUDIES" is up in the navigation bar at the top. On the page you can click on an image to be taken to that blog post I'll update it and add the new color studies as I do them.

Hope you have lots of fun with your Lucky Penny block! Be sure to check out the other Moda designers!
6.17– Vanessa Goertzen
6.24 – Stacy Iest Hsu
7.1 – Robin Pickens
7.8 – Janet Clare
7.15 – Jen Kingwell
7.22 – Joanna Figueroa
7.29 – Corey Yoder
8.5 – Sherri McConnell
8.12 – Betsy Chutchian
8.19 – Jan Patek
8.26 – Brigitte Heitland 
9.2 – Lisa Bongean
9.9 – Lissa Alexander
9.16 – Laurie Simpson

I love the way this week's block by Laurie Simpson, Hen & Chicks, can be a fun play with a checkerboard feel of an opportunity to emphasize the squares framing the center square. For Laurie's pattern click the link to access her blog with the pattern:

And here is my COLOR STUDY with the block! I am adding to my blue row this week. I'll be doing blocks to the lighter end of the spectrum but I like to play with the darker colors too and see how it changes the whole mood of the block.

I started with a simple version with a dark center, then tried light radiating out from the center. The longer rectangles can also start to make square shapes within the checkerboard. Keeping the colors the same on some squares next to the long rectangles makes a squared C shape. This one was a little harder to do a color ramp from top to bottom, so I gave up on my tries at that. At the end of my experiments, I sewed mine  pretty close to the one on the upper right.

I made the mistake of looking at the overall block and not reading directions before starting so I started making strip sets to subcut for efficiency. About half way through I realized the diagraming had a longer background rectangle joining the middle of the small square rows, so I kept going on the course for this one and made 9-patches with a square between. 

I also wanted a medium blue and a lighter blue so I flipped my Thatched to use the back side for the lighter blue. The dark center of the block is 96 Royal and the medium/light blue is 93 Sky.

The blues in Abby Rose have more of a turquoise/teal color to them. It's called Seafoam in Abby Rose and I again used the back side on the rectangular strips to make my framing more subtle.

Fellow blockhead designers sewing along:
​6.10 – Laurie Simpson <–We are Here
6.17– Vanessa Goertzen
6.24 – Stacy Iest Hsu
7.1 – Robin Pickens
7.8 – Janet Clare
7.15 – Jen Kingwell
7.22 – Joanna Figueroa
7.29 – Corey Yoder
8.5 – Sherri McConnell
8.12 – Betsy Chutchian
8.19 – Jan Patek
8.26 – Brigitte Heitland 
9.2 – Lisa Bongean
9.9 – Lissa Alexander

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This week's block, XOXO from Lissa Alexander can be found at the Moda blog archive of Blockheads blocks. This is a great resource place to get your blocks and catch up on any you missed. 

I'm still doing some browns this week so I've added a pop of orange to liven it up, and a little gray for a cooler balance. I intended to do this block with tan background corners and just white centers in the O's but I forgot and my blocks were done before I remembered. I'm sticking with these!

For my mixed print this week I 'm using V&Co Ombre Confetti. I just love this fabric! The density change with the dots to go with the lighter or darker value of the color is just perfect. I love that little pop of celebration and movement. And those little leopard print handle Gingher scissors...they are the first scissors I got with fun handles. I got them about 18 years ago and they were a special birthday treat I gave myself.

Soooooo...want to see some color studies?? First I have my basic browns and orange. I made this in the first version since it went in with my rainbow row theme. I like looking at the richness when you add dark colors along with the light colors into those stitch-and-flip corners. And more orange, and how about playing with the orange and switching it up within the Xs and Os? If I were making the block for a fun pillow I would probably do something more mixed, like the right one on the second row. This stays with color stories- greens on top, yellow and oranges on the bottom. But each one is a mix of values within those colors and it feels like a lively mix of movement. 

The all-green blocks have a different feel. The one on the left has the OXXO go from light on top to dark on bottom while the background does the reverse, dark to light going down each row. And next to it, the lights and darks stay the same in the top and bottom and the 2 middle rows. This emphasizes the feeling of mountains and valleys vs letters. 

On the last row, I've played with the browns making a center square by using one corner of each X, O block. Then consistent color above and below that, to the sides and in the corners. It creates a feeling of banded color or a transparent film of color layed over the Xs and Os. And lastly, by alternating the insides and outsides (so a chartreuse center has turquoise corners and the next one has a turquoise center with chartreuse corners) we get a continuation of the angled shape from block to block, creating a composition on angled lines that form new diamonds. The little white triangles in the center are a focal point and a bow on the package! This one really has a strong directional movement to the way the blocks read as a continual sections. This is the other one I think I'd make as an experiment.

Check back on Saturday when I post some of the blocks I've been catching up on. I am really excited to share my applique bird and urn from a couple weeks ago and I did Joanna Figueroa's alternate flower too.
See you soon!

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