Plaids, plaids, plaids

Last week the weather turned cool and rainy (it rained for 4 days straight!) and it made me think Fall had arrived and turned my thoughts towards making a quilt from plaids and stripes. (The weather has since turned again back to short sleeves but at least we don’t need the air conditioner :)

I started making this easy 4-patch/9-patch block.
I like the “bow” effect when the block is on-point.

It’s a great block for scraps as all the pieces are the same width. I decided I wanted a 9” block so I cut strips 2 ¾” . The squares are cut 2 ¾” x 2 ¾” and the rectangles are cut 2 ¾” x 5”. Strips that are 2 ½” make 8” blocks with the squares cut 2 ½” x 2 ½” and the rectangles cut

2 ½” x 4 ½”. If you start with 3” strips, then the blocks are 10” in the finished quilt (squares cut 3” x 3”, rectangles 3” x 5 ½”).

Then I started experimenting with different placements of light and dark. I made this block which is a little boring

and then this one which is… I don’t know what... (ugly?)

Then I tried having both the light and dark squares making an X.

I’ve decided to make half the blocks the original "bow" way and half with the light/dark X and see how they look together. For me that’s the fun part-I always want to jump ahead to the setting before I’ve even made enough blocks to play around with!