March block 2014: Green Whirlygiggles

March already.....  I'm still arranging and rearranging my lovely log cabins from last year (and feeling so lucky, thankyou all for your marvellous blocks), so to put focussed thought into another block was a challenge.  The whirlygiggle block is really easy and I hope you have fun putting it together.  A bit of surfing showed that the original tutorial comes from Greeting Arts, but I quite liked Holly and Olive's technique which doesn't involve templates or anything complicated.

What you need:

• Two x 5 inch squares of a green patterned fabric.  I'm hoping you all have some lovely greens in your stashes to use.  I love warm greens, olive, hunter green, sea green, sage, khaki, citron green, chartreuse, peacock green just about all greens. I'm trying to think of an exception, but can only think of a dark forest green, that I reckon I might even like sometimes!  I am also hoping you have these greens in a modern print please.  I would rather not have marbles or batik's if possible.
• Two x 5 inch squares of a white self-patterned fabric (but if you only have plain white, that's ok)

What you do:
1. On each square make a diagonal cut 2 inches in from the top left corner to 2 inches from the bottom right hand corner.


2. Then re-arrange as per photo below:


3. With right sides together, sew the little sub-blocks together (scant 1/4 inch naturally), so that you end up with four sub-blocks like below:













4. Re-arrange again so that it looks like the windmill shape below:

5. Join. You'll end up with a block like this.

I then trimmed it to the largest size possible which ended up being 8 1/4 inches square.  Now I don't see that size of block being constructed out there in blogland, but blimey, that extra 1/4 inch all around will make them 8 inches when all joined up and all the more green to see and enjoy in my opinion.





One block will be delightful.  Happy sewing everyone.
Anthea xx