Excuses, Excuses........................And Cake!

Hey everyone!

So I started my block a day patchwork project with you guys, published the first block tutorial whilst completely forgetting I had to make a Birthday cake for my friends birthday and then attend the party to eat it, so my block a day is currently running at a block every 3 days, however, I can assure you from now it will be a block a day!!

Here's a peek at the cake I made:

So I wasn't completely happy with it, mainly my piping was a bit pants, but the Birthday Boy was well happy so  I'm not going to beat myself up about it!
My cake decorating course starts Thursday which I am super excited about, and hopefully they will teach me better piping techniques!!!

I think this cake is a good excuse for not doing my squares, however I am back now and ready to write the tutorial for the next block, so here goes nothing!

A Block A Day Keeps The Boredom At Bay:

Anti Madness Block 2: The Diamond Square Block:

This Is The Block Template

What you will need to make the Diamond Square Block:

3 Different patterned/plain fabrics
Templates: Which you can download and print here (templates include a 5mm seam allowance)
Taylor's Chalk
Scissors
Sewing machine - human or electrical!!

Now, For the sake of this tutorial I am going to label my fabrics A, B, C & D:

And this is the way I'm laying them out:

Now you will see on the template each pattern piece is numbered, this is how you need to cut your pieces:

Using template number 1, Cut 1 in fabric C
Using template number 2, Cut 4 in fabric A
Using template number 3, Cut 4 in fabric B

(I should have done it 1,2,3 - A,B,C but I didn't think about it at the time, slap on the wrist for me!)

So to make this block you start with your centre square and 2 pieces of your number 3 template:

Following the directional arrows place your triangles onto your square, right sides together and sew using a 5mm seam allowance where I have shown the dotted line:

Iron your seams facing outwards towards the triangles and you end up with this:

Now take your remaining template 3 pieces and lay them out:

Again following the directional arrows place your triangles onto your block, right sides together, and sew your 5mm seams as the lines show:

Again iron the seams towards the triangles.  You now have a slightly bigger square:

Now my edges aren't perfect but I'm not going to panic as I can rectify that in the next stages.
All we need to do now is attach our template number 2 pieces, which is basically the same method we just used, so let's get to it and lay our first 2 pieces out:

So again following the directional arrows, I'm going to place my triangles onto my square right sides together and attach using my 5mm seam allowance on the lines shown:

Press your seams towards the triangles

Lay out your remaining 2 pieces, and sew Your 5mm to the line shown:

Press your remaining seams out towards the triangles, and there you have it, our Diamond Square Block
is complete!!

All done and dusted, ready for another one tomorrow!
As you all know this Block a Day thing is simply to keep me from going of the rails whilst I complete a rather large order for a rather boring cushion cover, I am surrounded by all the pieces I have cut out *sobs*
Tomorrow is going to be a long day, I'm going to head off now, make myself a last cuppa for this evening and mosey on over and have a nose on the Handmade Monday page and see what everyone's been up to, I would highly recommend that you do to!!

Until tomorrow!!
x