Indiana Puzzle

Week 33 of Barbara Brackman's Civil War Sampler is called 'Indiana Puzzle'. As always, reading her stories about the Civil War is very interesting. I, at least, am learning a lot.

Completely re-written on August 25th after Linda Franz issued an intoxicating SIX different sizes of Drunkard's Path collections, and a wonderful Design Book.

I've made one printing table for the 6" block, which uses the 3" Drunkard's Path collection. BUT, there are two different options on the 8" block : one circle (using the 4" Drunkard's Path collection) or 4 circles (using the über-cute 2" Drunkard's Path collection).

Taking my cue from Brackman's block, he printing-tables are based on using 4 different fabrics. Two different ones for the circle, two other ones for the background.
HOWever, you can make the block using just two fabrics, and the AB combo layout found in all the Drunkard's Path collections. If you do that, you need to print two combos of both fabrics to make this week's block.

When it comes to the 3" collection, a 5" charm will print one of each shape, and by using 4 charms and printing the combo, you'll have a wonderful, scrappy block.

Brackman's post.
Printing table.

Sunflowers

Two new collections and a FREE design-book of Sunflowers.
This is a block / quilt I've been wanting to make for years, so I got it immediately. And to help the rest of you, I've made printing-tables for both the 6" and the 12" size.

There are two printing tables for each. Cutting out the 6" size I found that Layout 1 for both the inner and outer triangles of the Sunflower were surprisingly fiddly to cut out, so I've made two printing-tables for each size : one with Layout 1 for both inner and outer triangles, and one for Layout 2 for both inner and outer triangles.

Printing-table for one 6" Sunflower.
Printing-table for one 12" Sunflower.

If you want to make the Double Sunflower shown in the design-book, you need both collections, and you need to print most of both Sunflowers; the bits you do not print are : Background for the 6" Sunflower and Centre Circle for the 12" Sunflower.

And then pictures of back and front of just the flower part.

One of the advantages of hand-piecing (at least to me) is, that I don't press as I go. I more-or-less stitch one block all the way to the finish before I press. However, with the Sunflower, I would recommend that you press before adding the background (which transforms the round flower into a square block).
Press all the outer seams in one direction, and all the inner ones in a different one. You can then twirl the many seams that meet at the middle of the diamonds, and it will help you to keep the block flat.

(if you have trouble seeing what I mean, try clicking on the picture, it will take you to a larger version where my point might be easier to see.)