Modern Blocks Quilt-A-Long Block One- Follow the Leader

Yay! Today is the day that we are officially kicking of our Modern Block Quilt a long. We will be sharing one block a month for the next 12 months and I’m excited about that! What about you?

This month it is my turn and my first block is Follow the Leader (page 67). I will be doing two blocks each month, one in solids and one in the fabric line Little Apples by Aneela Hoey. They both will end up as very different quilts but will be exactly the same block wise.

If you haven’t purchased the Modern Blocks book yet, we will be showing you how we put the blocks together every month, BUT it is a fab book and would really recommend that you purchase it. I bought my copy from the Book Depository.

The above are the Kona solids colours that I used in my first block. And the below are the Little Apples fabrics with a Kona White .

Now I just what to preface this by saying that I still class myself a beginner quilter. Whilst I have made a few quilts in my time. I am still learning something EVERY SINGLE TIME I QUILT. One of the reasons that I wanted to do this QAL was so that I could step out of my comfort zone and learn new things.

Mistakes have already been made, but I have already learnt from them too. So please if you have never quilted before, don’t worry! There are people here that can offer suggestions if you are finding something hard or are unsure.

Now let’s get down to business!

For this block you will need (using the above block as guide):

White Fabric:
Cut 4 rectangles 3 1/2 inches x 6 1/2 inches
Cut 32 squares 2 inches x 2 inches

Green Fabric:
Cut 4 rectanlges 2 inches x 3 1/2 inches

Grey Fabric:
Cut 4 rectanlges 2 inches x 3 1/2 inches

Red Fabric:
Cut 4 rectanlges 2 inches x 3 1/2 inches

Blue Fabric:
Cut 4 rectanlges 2 inches x 3 1/2 inches

This is what my cut fabric looked like for my solids block:

How to:
You need to create flying geese. To do so use 2 of the white 2 inch x 2 inch squares and one of the green rectangles.

First draw a diagonal line across your 2 inch squares then place the square on top of your rectangle matching up the corners and sewing across the diagonal line.

Trim away the remaining corning leaving a 1/4 inch seam.

Press the white fabric away from the coloured and repeat with the remaining rectangles and squares.

As above you now need to join 2 matching flying geese units. Repeat with the remaining 6.

Next arrange the below pattern using the flying geese units and a 3 1/2 inch x 6 1/2 inch unit.

Then sew the quadrants together.

And ta da! You are done.

Below is my major error block. I made the stupidest mistake when putting this together, but I am going to save that for another post as this one is long enough. I am still going to use it in my final quilt, but I will show you soon how I am fixing it up.

I can’t wait to see your blocks. Please make sure you come back here and link them up. We are going to be announcing some great prizes soon that your will have the chance to win just by participating in this QAL.

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Actually Amy (368 Posts)

When Amy is not blogging here on And Sew We Craft you can find her over at Actually Amy where she blogs about her life and other things.

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