Quiltmaker's - Hip to be Square

This will be my last quilt for Quiltmaker's Scrap Squad 2011.  This has been a very fun year getting to make quilts for the Scrap Squad.  Most of all, "thanks" to all the other Scrap Squad ladies for their inspirations, fun times and sharing over the past year.  You will find lots of good pictures and ideas on their blogs:

          Dionne in Washington

          Jane in Tennessee

          Ruthie in Indiana

          Kim in New York

          Carol in Ohio

          Linda in California

          Pat in New Brunswick, Canada

I am a new Electric Quilt user and this is my first attempt to draw a specific block, put it into a quilt setting, color it, rotate it, and just have fun exploring how this block could be used.  The Hip to Be Square block is designed by Elizabeth Dackson and has proved to be a very versatile, pretty block that I like a lot.

Usually, I am drawn to use bright, clear colors but, after trying several colors in EQ I decided to use a more subdued color pallet.  The centers of the blocks are all very “scrappy”.  The corner units, the rectangle with triangle on the end, are the same fabrics in all blocks.

Fabrics I used

Two blocks, with one rotated

Since this quilt is called Hip to Be Square, I thought, maybe, I could make it “more hip” if I added more squares.  So by rotating every other block until the corner aqua units came together, instead of the 4 patch unit, a new aqua square was made inside a larger white square, which turned out to be “on point”.

Once the blocks were completed, I laid them out like the original pattern and then tried them with every other block rotated.   I liked both, but decided to use the rotated version for my quilt.

Straight set, like pattern in magaine

With every other block rotated

When I am going to make a pieced border, I like to pull out an element from the block.  The centers of the Hip to Be Square block made a great border with each border separated with a one inch piece of background fabric.  By just putting the squares around the corners, I can always get a perfect fit on the border, because I can adjust the size in the center background fabric of the border.

My finished Hip to Be Square quilt.

TIP:
One tip that I would like to share.  Instead of drawing a diagonal mark on each square to be added to the rectangle unit, I made a piece of cardboard, just larger than the square, corner to corner, held it down as I sewed along the side of it.  Saved a lot of time and the markings on the black square was too hard to see anyway.

Using a cardboard to mark and sew diaganol line