Robin's setting for Moda Blockheads 4: Surrounded Square Garden

This is about the half way point on Moda Blockheads 4 and a good time to share my setting directions and the pattern for my corner blocks. If you visited my blog post at the very beginning of this round of Moda Blockheads, you might have seen my initial plan for my "Surrounded Square Garden" setting.

I wanted to make both the 9" size blocks and the smaller 4.5" blocks and combine them in a square structure, with each ring/row of the blocks being a consistent color family. These were some ideas with blue/green and a touch of purple or periwinkle. Or a Christmas palette of reds with green accents. Or the happy summery palette of pink, orange and yellow. I decided on this palette as my direction and I am making the very last image with a Cranberry Thatched for the background on that outer square.

​Here are some of my blocks so far:

I am making small green blocks for the corner of the inner small row, just like my outer row will have leaves in each of my big outer corners. I thought my garden of blocks would be structured nicely with those consistent corners, plus it would give a pop of a few of the row colors with a blocky bud in the inner corner.

Since my outer row has a Cranberry background, I used cranberry in the background piecing for my corners. For most people, if you are using a white background, I'd assume you would want those background pieces as white for the leaves and but to stand out against. 

I used scraps of fabric I have from past collections. For the leaves, look for 5.5" squares to start making your half square triangles with. You can have your leaves all go in the same direction, or do as I did and make them fan out from the center point. Because I had planned to use this Fuchsia pink in my buds, I made certain to weave the color through some of my 9" pink sampler blocks.

This pattern is up at my shop at robinpickensINC.com in the freebies section. There are two patterns (block and setting) but combined into one PDF document. The corner blocks are called "Blocky Bud and Leaves" and the overall quilt setting is the "Surrounded Square Garden." This bar below will take you directly to the shop Freebies section! Look for the image of the corner Blocky Bud with Leaves! 

Freebies section of the shop for Quilt Block and Setting patterns

For the sashings that separate the rows and the very outer border, you will need about 2/3 Yard of background or sashing fabric. This setting makes up a 53.5" square lap/wall quilt but feel free to add more outer borders to increase your size.

Here is where I am at so far with my progress in terms of where these will fall within the color rows.

Over at the Quilt Emporium, my local shop, they are making one in the blue/green/periwinkle/purple color family and I love to see their blocks evolve each week! Lisa made up some bundles if you like these color groupings. The red/green with a touch of turquoise was with Christmas holidays in mind. This would make such a fun Christmas quilt! You can visit the Quilt Emporium website if you are interested in their bundles.

I hope you are having as much fun making blocks with Moda Blockheads as I am! If you are interested in more color explorations, I am going to be at the Quilter's Gathering in Berlin, Ohio this August, doing 2 half day workshops "playing with color" and it should be a fun time to explore color together!

​Happy (colorful) sewing!!