Color Play with Half Square Triangles - Green Four Patch block

 Here's a fun scrap block with lots of design possibilites. Let me know what you think in the comments!

I designed this block for my quilt guild's block lottery in March. We wanted to use GREEN as our theme colour. I wanted to make it scrappy so I wouldn't have to worry about all the shades and variations of white/cream/beige that would come in if I asked for green and white blocks! 

The block lottery also contained another challenge - to use a four patch block with at least one half square triangle in each quadrant. Now, a simple pinwheel block meets these requirements! But I also gave guild members this block as an example they could use.

Then I started playing with the block in EQ8 to see what the quilt possibilities would be. By rotating the block I came up with several layouts.

Layout 1

In this version rotating the blocks results in pinwheels alternating with another block that looks like a shoofly with a square in a square center. The green half square triangles read as the background.

Layout 2

This version creates rows of on point looking blocks with half blocks floating in a green zigzag. I didn't change the fabrics in my scrap block so the design is really dominated by the pink and burgundy. It would look even scrappier if the half square triangle fabrics were different in each block.

Layout 3

In this version there is strong visual movement down and across the quilt. The bold pink and burgundy form diagonal rows across the quilt and the green again takes on the role of background color. Blocks made with different scraps would be really happy in this layout - I can see the potential for playing with rows of different color scraps in this one!

Layout 4

My final version to share with you is with the green fabric replaced with white.

It could be any color but the white really gives it a modern feel. Here I changed all of the fabrics except the pink :) The quilt has a lot of diagonal and vertical movement with half stars peeking out.

This block may eventually become a pattern - which layout do you like best?

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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