Block of the Month July 2015 - Bear Paw Block

July already - not a great summer here in England. We had a week and I am perfectly content with that. We are having lovely vampire weather with no sun much at all and I am as happy as a clam.

My ta dah! moment of the week is one which you will very much enjoy this time I think. My lovely Pretty Patches editor has asked me to write a web tutorial series on sewing basics and quilt techniques and it is free for you to enjoy. Pretty Patches is one of my beautiful English magazines and I will have a column in there beginning soon (I will let you know when).

But at the moment, it is all about the tutes. You can find them here and I urge you to check them out if you are starting out in sewing and quilting. There will be more to follow at some point too.

I thought that we might get a little bit more involved this month and make a block with a few components, triangles and squares. But fear not! The triangles are all half square ones and they are not too difficult at all.

I am very into text prints at the moment and I have used some low volume prints and slightly upsized the block so that you can see what is going on. This makes it easier to make and looks a little more modern too. Anyway, here it is...

It was actually a lot of fun to make and the more subtle tones are a bit of a change from my usual brightness - just to prove that I am versatile!

Start with three fat eighths or similar. I love the pretty softness of these but you could equally go for brights or red and white.

My block is 26.5cm x 26.5 cm.

Begin with a 10cm square for the top right corner (fabric #1: text print). From fabric #2 (pink ditsy floral), cut an 18cm square. These two pieces do not require further cutting.

To make the 'claws' cut two more squares  10.5cm x 10.5cm each. two from fabric #1 and two from fabric #3 (blue soft floral).

Take a square...

cut it in half diagonally. Take a second square of the other colour and cut it in half diagonally too...

Now join the two pieces...

One claw made. Using the main photo as a clue for the alignment, repeat this for all of the other pieces so that you have four claw segments plus the two original squares.

By the way, pay attention to the direction of text prints and one way only designs. Make sure that they are all facing the right way. It is worth it for your finished make.

Now, working on the right hand column, join two of your claw bits one on top of the other...

Attach this to the right hand side of the large square like this...

Now make the top section which is two more claw pieces plus the corner square that you cut first...

Join them to the top of the block

And that's all there is to it! This looks pretty with a plain square every second block and it looks fabulous made into a scrappy quilt.

As I said, it is a larger version so you could size it down a little but be aware that it will become progressively fiddlier as you do this.

Enjoy and thank you so much for stopping by!

Happy sewing

Love and hugs

Debbie xxx