Last of the Cheddarback Blocks

For you who may not know, Cheddarback is a block of the month sew-along offered by Gay Bomers of Sentimental Stitches.  We began making the blocks last March and when so many of us were asked to stay at home because of the pandemic, Gay gave us the last ten blocks together instead of over several months' time.  These first two blocks are remakes.  The last ten in this post will allow me to sew together the rest of the quilt.  There's a quilt top finish coming soon!

Block 26

This is a 12" block which will go on the bottom left corner.  This row of blocks was not in the original quilt.  Gay gave us a Barrister's Block pattern and also suggested we could choose a different pattern.  I made a block I thought was perfect but found it too similar to another block in the quilt. Then I chose this pattern and made it with blues and a creamy print.  When I placed it with the rest of the blocks I realized that using a print background was very unlike the choices the original Cheddarback creator made.  She most often used plaids, stripes, or ginghams with darker prints.  So I remade the block.  Perhaps it's not really the way the creator would have used these stripes (if she would have used these stripes at all) but I like it better than the first two blocks.  So this one will get stitched into the quilt.  (If you've been counting you'll realize that I now have two 12" blue orphan blocks.)

Block 35

This is a 12" block and also a second version.  The first one I made had a fabric with very light stripes and much darker blues.  I like this version better.  I don't know if you can tell but the flowers in the lighter blue fabric are yellow/orange.  I colored them so they would be just slightly closer to the fabric in the original quilt.  (And remaking this block means I now have three 12" blue orphan blocks.)

Block 59

This is a 12" block.  The original had a tan paisley fabric but I had nothing similar.  This light print was the closest I could find.  This was a simple block to make.

Block 60

This is a 5" block.  This was a paper-pieced pattern.  If you've been reading my progress on this quilt you'll know I don't like that method of creating blocks.  So I paper pieced only the geese then cut out the rest of the blocks using the paper pattern, leaving 1/4" on all sides, and stitched the rest of the block.  I'll do almost anything to avoid paper piecing.

Block 61

This is a 5" block.  This block was cut using paper templates.  My colors are similar to hers and I find them unusual.  From a distance the star in the center disappears completely and this block looks like a large X.

Block 62

This is a 5" block.  I wrote about this block here and here.  It was a bit of a challenge and it's obvious there are some glitches in the striped fabric where the seams create a little too much white or red.  The original fabric was a wavy red and white stripe and her seams barely showed.  Oh, to have had some of her original fabric for this block!

Block 63

This is a 5" block.  This was a letter block in the original quilt this but since I didn't want to more letters, I made this block.  It was simple to create since each square finishes at an inch -- five across for a 5" block.

Block 64

This is a 12" block.  When I've substituted or added blocks I've chosen ones that were created/published about the time the original Cheddarback quilt was made, probably 1890-1910.  But when I saw the black and white pattern for this 2014 block, called Aunt Dinah, I thought it looked liked it could have been made earlier and I saw the potential to use striped fabric as the Cheddarback creator did.  I think the stripes could have been put to better use but I'm not going to remake it.

Block 65

This is a 5" block.  This was one of the easiest of these last blocks to make.  It is a substitute for a letter block.

Block 66

This is a 5" block.  This was another paper-pieced pattern, necessitated by the fact that 5 divided by 3 does not come out to a number we have on our quilting rulers.  To avoid paper piecing, I did the division and found that 2 3/16" x 3 comes out to 5 9/16" (after sewing the center seams).  I decided to cut on the narrow side of 2 3/16" (yes, I had to consistently estimate just where that was on the ruler) and sew on the wide side of 1/4".  It worked just fine.  Another success avoiding paper piecing!

Block 67

This is a 5" block.  This was another paper pieced block which I didn't paper piece.

Block 68

This is a 5" block.  The original has dark green checked fabric.  The best I could come up with was this black plaid.  It works for me.

And that's the end of the Cheddarback blocks, though probably not the end of posts about the blocks.  It's been a fun sew-along and I'm grateful to Gay Bomers for recreating the patterns and making them available to us.

I hope you're staying safe and enjoying the change of seasons.

I'm linking this post to
> Needle and Thread Thursday (NTT) at My Quilt Infatuation
> Off the Wall at Nina Marie Sayre's blog
> Put Your Foot Down at For the love of geese
> Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts
> Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More
> Can I get a Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Thanks for hosting, ladies.

--Nancy.
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