I love to capture the essence of the seasons in my quilting. I thought I'd take the opportunity to share how to make this very simple but beautiful quilt block, the Maple Leaf Block, to hopefully inspire your Autumn makes. I've opted for golden, jewel like tones of amber and red, but you can choose whatever colours you like.
To Make a 12" (finished) Block You Will Need:
3 different colour fabrics, one for the leaf, one for the stem and one for the background.
Cutting:
Leaf - 2 squares 5" x 5", 3 squares 4 1/2" x 4 1/2"
Background - 2 squares 5" x 5", 1 square 4 1/2" x 4 1/2", 2 squares 4" x 4"
Stem - 1 square 4 1/2" x 4 1/2"
1. To make the stem, place a 4" red square right sides together on the bottom left corner of the 4 1/2" grey square. Draw a diagonal line from top left to bottom right on the 4" red square. Stitch down this drawn line.
2. Trim off the excess leaving a 1/4" seam allowance.
3. Press open. This is known as the stitch-and-flip method. Your square will look like this:
4. Rotate the square so that the grey part of the square is on the left. Place the second red 4" square right sides together in the bottom left hand corner, and mark in a diagonal line from top left to bottom right.
Stitch down the drawn line, as before, trim to a 1/4" seam, open out and press.
5) Place a 5" leaf square and a 5" background square right sides together and draw a diagonal line down the centre.
Stitch a 1/4" either side of this line. Repeat on the second pair of 5" leaf and background squares. Cut down the drawn line.
6) Open out and press to reveal 4 Half Square triangles. Trim each to 4 1/2".
7) Orientate all the squares as shown.
8) Stitch the squares together into rows, then stitch the rows together, nesting the seams to complete the block.
I hope you have fun making maple leaf blocks! You could make some gorgeous Autumnal cushions, or stitch lots of blocks to make a quilt to snuggle under by the fire as the evenings draw in.
This block is included in the sampler quilt that's on the cover of my book Jump into Patchwork and Quilting. Why not grab yourself a copy and learn some other new qulit blocks as well and put them all together to make your very own sampler quilt!