Blocks 17 and 18 - Unknown Blocks

Up till now, all the blocks in the quilt I'm reproducing have been popular blocks that I had no trouble recognizing. But not these next two. I've looked through pages and pages of quilt blocks and haven't seen anything similar so I don't know what to call them. No made up names are jumping to mind so I'm going to leave them unnamed.

These blocks are also different in that they appear to be pieced by a less experienced quilter than the others: points are cut off and corners don't line up. Perhaps they are early effort or perhaps they were done by someone younger. They use the same pink and purple fabrics that appear elsewhere in the quilt so they were made from the same stash of fabric as the rest of the quilt.

They were placed in opposite corners of the quilt . So, I've also used the same color scheme for both blocks.

The first block is above and below. It finishes out at 10 inches and is really just a 4 patch but two of the patches are pieced. The block reminds me of 2 Pac-Man gobbling in different directions.

I think this block would make an interesting quilt on it's own.

The second block also finishes at 10 inches and has an interesting zigzag shape to it.

I pieced this block the same way it was pieced in the original quilt which probably wasn't the easiest way to make the block. Looking at it now, I can come up with many ways to make the same look. It's definitely easier to follow cutting and piecing instructions that to calculate them yourself. I had the first major goof of the project. Notice the triangles in the wrong shade of purple? I thought I'd added in the seam allowance in my notes and I didn't. When I went to sew the triangles on they were the wrong size and I didn't have enough of that fabric left to finish the block.

Luckily that wasn't a problem with the fox fabric. I wouldn't have been able to find an easy match.

This block is made up of two identical halves. The center of each half is a half square triangle, with small triangles added on opposite sides and larger triangles added on the other sides. As such, it wasn't easy to piece.

The block reminds me a variation of Delectable Mountains and if I did it again, I'd piece it more in that style - with 4 strips. I think a quilt with this block rotated and mirror imaged about would be very striking, either in 2 colors or scrappy. But to make a quilt full of blocks, I'd have to simplify the piecing.

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Erica's Stitches

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