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!
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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

When it was week 18 for Moda Blockheads, I was deep in sewing for Quilt Market. I knew it would be a week were I put it aside and worked on it later. I'm glad I waited since I decided to tweak the applique block a little and to sew one of the alternate block designs for my second block.

The block for week 18 was designed by Jan Patek and is called Bird and Urn. I showed a bird with three flowers on stems. I decided I wanted to make MORE flowers so I duplicated the blooms and added an additional stem. Another just floats in the open space. I also made the shape of the urn with sharp corners on the bottom. I also rounded out the arc of flowers by adding white circles like pollen dots to give the design a fancy, polka dotted feel. These dots stand out on a deep blue background. My fabrics are all from my Abby Rose line. My applique is done as fusible raw edge applique.

To get Jan's pattern, visit her blog by clicking here:

Since I'm making two quilts, one of which is all Thatched fabrics, I decided to switch it up a little and make the alternate block that Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts posted. It is called Tulip Bloom and is a lovely pieced flower using stitch and flip pieces. I stayed in my same blue color family with a dark background, but this one is on Navy instead of Marine. I've used an assortment of greens from Thatched and the Thatched coordinating green in Painted Meadow. I am thinking about also going back and making Joanna's house from the birdhouse week for the Thatched quilt as well.

You can visit Joanna's blog to her flower pattern by clicking the gray box:

I hope you are all having lots of fun with your blocks and the Blockheads community!
​Happy sewing!

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

If you follow feeds, I am on bloglovin- click here to follow! Thanks and happy sewing!

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!

If it's easier to see my posts on a feed, I am also on Bloglovin at ​https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/robin-pickens-blog-20472215

Thank you to Lisa Bongean for a wonderful block for this week's Moda Blockheads. You can access the block pattern on her blog at this link:

This week I was making the first of my blocks for my BROWN row in my rainbow row quilt. I don't work with brown a whole lot so this is a good exercise for stretching myself beyond my go-to colors. AND I decided to work in some of my new SOLANA fabric to the mixed prints block so it made it even more fun. But first...a little color/contrast study with the block...

I love the illusion of a square on point made from those flying geese when you keep the same color on all the flying geese and the small corner squares in the center. I also liked keeping a little shading difference between the center square and the star points surrounding it. But its interesting to see how playing with the outside half square triangles and making them a different color from the flying geese can give the block an overall octagonal feeling. And if you play with different colors for the flying geese on the larger and smaller blocks, it separates the inner square vs the illusion of the square on point. The example with the darkest corners on the large flying geese emphasizes a giant plus sign behind the on-point square. And in the bottom row I started playing with adding some orange, thinking a scrappier mix of colors and I like how the white corners and flying geese centers work together as a band of on-point border. The one with orange one might be my favorite of the color studies. But I think that is partly because I really like orange as a color.

My all-Thatched version is using the Cocoa and Oatmeal brown Thatched with a center square of Cream. The star points around the center are the Oatmeal from the back side for subtle difference.

For my version with prints, I am using the scenic print from the group in the corners with the criss cross ratan plaid, sunflower seeds on yellow and varietals on cream in the center. Solana doesn't have brown as a colorway but I think these browns from Thatched go with it quite well since the whole group has a warm, earthy feel. Makes me want to get out in the garden and start planting.

I love how perfectly these blocks go with my latest vintage Singer acquisition- this two tone 301. When I saw the two-tone colors I fell in love with this one. I just got it at Road to California in January from Aspire Sewing from Anaheim. She is lovely. I haven't named her yet (keep thinking "Mabel").

Please stop by the other Moda Blockheads designers' blogs and check out what they are all up to. I'm happy to be back to posting on time this week! Still catching up with a few so stay tuned for more to come this week! Want to follow me on Bloglovin'? If so, click this link! https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/robin-pickens-blog-20472215

At the time Corey Yoder's Starry Eyed block was released for Moda Blockheads, I was deep in Quilt Market sewing. Finally this weeked I've had a little time to do the blocks! Here is Corey's post if you want to get the pattern:
​https://corianderquilts.com/moda-block-heads-block-15-giveaway/

Blue, blue, lovely blue! The main blues here used from Thatched Basics are Royal 96 (corners and background) and Sky 93 (bright medium light blue). For the lightest blue I flipped Sky and used the backside. I wanted the effect of shading or dimension, so even though the pattern used a single square in the middle top, bottom and sides, I used triangles.

The dark center is Navy 94 and the white is Cream 36 in Thatched. I did some color studies on the computer the week of the block release and if you didn't get a chance to see those, it is at this link:
​https://www.robinpickens.com/blog/moda-blockheads3-starry-eyed-by-corey-yoder-and-giveaway

For my block made with prints, I decided to use my NEW Solana line that is shipping to shops in October! The blue here is a more tealish blue with green undertones. I switched up the dark center this time for a lighter center with my happy ladybugs!

In Solana, there are two blues- Pond, the lighter medium blue and Horizon, the deeper darker blue. I love how the yellow sunflowers really pop on that Horizon Blue. The other prints in the Starry Eyed block are the Criss Cross print based on Ratan and Varietals, which are linear illustrations celebrating the varieties of Sunflowers.

I'm so glad we add in more Thatched blenders with each group to have more color range to play with. As for whether or not they stay on as basics depends on the popularity of the color and if it is different enough from the other basics of Thatched. I like how the Solana colors work really well with Marine and Turquoise and Peacock in the Thatched Basics.

Really hoping to get another set of blocks done tomorrow and get closer to catching up. Happy sewing, have a wonderful Memorial Day and stay safe and well!

I was able to get some more Village houses done in between other projects. I hope that I am able to keep making these fun little houses here and there and will have a full village in time for Christmas. 

My mother sent me some little fabric pieces she had too so I included some of those for some doors. I've been using fabrics from Sweetwater, Gingiber, Zenchic, Deb Strain, Natalia Bonner, Bonnie and Camille, my Thatched and Splendid, along with other pieces from my stash.

I'm so glad that Moda and Miss Rosie's Quilt Company made this pattern available to us during this time of staying at home. It is fun to sew these village blocks. You can view my previous post for more info on getting the pattern https://www.robinpickens.com/blog/the-village-in-christmas-cheer
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Happy sewing! 

Happy Blockheads Wednesday! I squeezed a few flying geese in here or there while I was doing other sewing this week. I love the balance and movement in this Crossroads block from Betsy Chutchian. You can get the pattern by visiting her blog here:

This week I am playing with ORANGES and it is such a lively color. Orange and purple, orange and green, orange and yellow, orange and pink...these are all ways I love to see orange pair up with other colors. I've used a mix of Abby Rose and Dandi Annie and Thatched on my mixed print block. Before I show more pictures of those, would you like to see some COLOR PLAY with this block design?

I liked the idea of the flying geese changing color as they moved closer to the square in the center. The top two image have darker geese on the outer perimeter with colors getting lighter as they march towards the center. The one on the left also mimics the dark to light movement with the triangles in the corners of the geese units as well, with a very dark background moving to a dark to medium pinks for the geese backgrounds. On the row right under that, its fun to see how the large corner blocks all becoming that same dark background makes the outer geese look like horns blowing out in all four directions. My next one was just color play to see the blocks in all different colors. Then on the bottom row I tried mixed colors within the geese, keeping my rows in a more pinky horizontal row and more purple vertical row, with a pop of orange for the center. The white large squares keeps all the focus on those flying geese rows. The very last image feels like 3 vertical columns with orange, red and gold reading in a stronger vertically banded composition.

Since my overall quilt plan is to go from darker blocks on the left to lighter blocks on the right, I thought I would  borrrow from this last color study idea. My Thatched-only block has the Tangerine color to the left large squares and I'm envisioning the light movement by making my right squares the lighter Apricot color. I think I'm going to have to fix that seam on the left or replace that upper left block to give myself a better seam allowance when I join these together. But that is for another day... 

I also used the idea of the dark perimeter geese moving into the lighter/more yellow colors as we get to the center. I feel like it is pointing to the sunshine!

On another note, I'll be sharing a new fabric line coming in a few weeks! I'm busy sewing and so excited to share so I hope you check back in. Till next week, happy sewing everyone!
​Robin

This week I made my first PURPLE block for my purple row in my Moda Blockheads3 quilt! I love that the name of this block by Sherri McConnell is "Dream" since I think purple can be a dreamy kind of color.

In the purple colors I used here, the darker Thatched purple and more plum-ish red purple color are both basics. The lighter purple was done specifically with my Sweet Pea & Lily line and I like this lighter background with the darker lines a lot. I'm hoping we can add a lighter purple to the basics like this!

For some reason I was having a hard time getting my points to match up today when I was sewing. Some days are just like that. When that happens, I rip it out, and I re-sew starting right at the middle point where the points are meeting, going out to the side, then flip the block and sew the other half from that middle point (instead of from one side to the other). That usually will allow me to match those points meeting in the center better. 

For my Thatched with prints version, I used all purple fabrics from Sweet Pea & Lily and I was reminded how fun it is to do some playing in purples. This block is also fun because I could create some other shapes within the blocks by changing the light and dark placements in the half square triangles. Want to see some color play?? 

The first one is my initial color mockup and it is the one I decided to go with since it works well with the overall ratio of light to dark within my bigger quilt plan. The next one over is trying the colors all getting lighter as the triangles move from left to right. Then flipping to see how that looks on a dark background. In the second row, the large half square triangles make new shapes if they are the same color as the smaller HSTs. I keep seeing arrows in the one on the left if I squint my eyes. And the two next to it make me think of bowties. The angled movement is strong in these. The bottom row is more dimensional with the additional shades. Are they large angled diamonds...no, they are Amethysts! I am so intrigued by the darkest one and am wondering if perhaps another Dream block is in my future?

Thanks to Sherri McConnell for this versatile and fun block. You can get the pattern at her blog at 
A Quilting Life. And just a note about those purple scissors. They are made by Kai Scissors and are serrated edged and are great to use! Love them.

And one more piece of news...CONGRATULATIONS JANE KIMBERLING! You are my winner for an ebook of Moda Blockheads 1 from Martingale Publishing! I've emailed you and I hope you love the book!

Check out my fellow designers for their Moda Blockhead posts:

• Corey Yoder of Coriander Quilts
• Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life 
• Betsy Chutchian
• Jan Patek of Jan Patek Quilts
• Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic
• Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings
• Lissa Alexander
• Laurie Simpson of Minick & Simpson
• Vanessa Goertzen of Lella Boutique
• Stacey Iest Hsu
• Janet Clare
• Jen Kingwell
• Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree & Company