Postcards from the East

This lovely quilt, Postcards from the East, began with a block swap with my QGGH Block Builders Bee.  Each block is a lovely Asian print with a black strip pieced into the center.  

Making these blocks is quite simple and basic.  

  1)  Start with a 5" square.

  2)  Slice this square down the middle, resulting with two rectangles 2.5" x 5" each.

  3)  Stitch an insert, a 1" x 5" black solid piece, into the middle split.  Use 1/4" seam allowances. Be cautious of piecing the insert into the former middle of the original block.  Depending on the print, this may not matter -- but on larger prints where the design continues across that black strip, it adds to the block.   

  4)  The resulting block will measure 5" square.   

  5)  Repeat steps 1 - 4 until you've made the number of blocks that you desire.

In this swap, we could make as many as 8 blocks that were identical, made using the same asian print.  After the trade is completed, we each receive a multitude of different blocks in return for the identical ones that were submitted.  Swapping blocks like this make it much easier to create scrappy quilts.  One more tip: I like to keep one of my original blocks before any of our swaps as my own record (to help me remember which blocks that I made). 

This past week-end, Postcards from the East was hand-delivered to Beverly who had been waiting patiently for over a year.  As soon as I gave her this quilt, I realized that I had not taken a nice photo of it for my own records.  At the time we were enjoying a lovely breakfast in a cozy New Orleans restaurant where there was no room to open the quilt to take a photo then, so Beverly promised to share a photo.   She sent this photo within an hour of our good-byes!  Hmmm, might have to start a new quilt for her soon ....

The quilt below was exhibited in the 2015 Joy of Quilts show held by the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston (QGGH).  It is made with some of the very same blocks that I used in my quilt for Beverly. 

"Asian Delight" made by LaNell Neel and the Neartown Bee,
Machine quilting completed by Jane Plisga.

LaNell was gifted with many of the Asian blocks from the Neartown Bee on her birthday, as she loves Asian fabrics.  She then used them to create the borders surrounding the center panel which she had in her collection of fabrics. 

Same blocks, different setting, makes for two lovely quilts.