It has been a while since we started the block of the month, but I had to wait for some missing fabric pieces to be mailed to me. Both kits that I purchased at the third block of the month meeting were missing something. They arrived yesterday, so here goes the first catch up block that was January’s design.  I needed another square of this print.

The block is called Aunt Dinah from Quilter’s Cache, you can find the pattern and block instructions here – http://www.quilterscache.com/A/AuntDinahBlock.html.

Start by cutting all your pieces. I found it helpful to make notes on the sheet that came with the BOM kit.

Lay out your squares with their HSTs being careful with the placement of the short edges against the squares. There is only one way it works.

Add the larger printed triangles.

Cut off the little tips so you can chain piece easily.

Lay out the little HST units, again there is only one way this is correct.  Pin the side you want to sew.  Open them up and press.

Add the large background triangles.

Lay the block out, sewing the units together across the rows.

Press your seams opposite and assemble the block, nesting the seams.

Once again, I am not happy with the overall appearance of this block due to the puckers in the gray. This time I took the suggestions sent to me, but the puckers remain. This fabric is stiff, difficult to put a pin in, and just gave me trouble.   I used a lot of steam to try to shrink the batiks a bit. Then I used some Best Press, but I am still getting those puckers. This block has a lot of bias edges, and I found that these fabrics are more prone to stretching on the bias than other cottons. Once stretched out of shape, batik tends to stay out of shape, and is difficult to get back square.

Oh, well.  I’ll try again with next month’s block and on through the year.

If you are visiting from a link party, please follow my blog to get the rest of the year’s Block of the Month posts.

Happy quilting!!