Serendipity

A New Project. 

Maybe these are a Stone Mason's Puzzle blocks or a variation. 

How did these blocks come to be? 

Serendipity. 

I recently saw Kaja, who blogs at Sew Slowly, making some blocks  that I love. Then I remembered that a long time ago I had bookmarked a similar quilt I love at a blog named Cactus Needle.  That quilt was in an exhibit in the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles in 2011.   The info with the quilt was as follows:

 Unknown Crosses (Stone Mason's Puzzle) 

c. 1940-1970 

71" X 81" 

Collection of Roderick Kiracofe 

*The quilt top was found in Alabama 

Back when I saw the quilt from the collection of Roderick Kiracofe and the mention that it might be a Stone Mason's Puzzle I looked at the directions in my Ladies' Art Company Block Tool (now out of print but I see there's a new version) I saw pieces had to be cut at an angle, some pieces reversed, etc. and my lazy self decided then I didn't love the block all that much.  I also looked at the block instructions at Quilter's Cache and yuck...that version is paper pieced and I like that even less than cutting and sewing angled pieces.    So the idea of a Stone Mason's Puzzle quilt for me remained as a bookmark for many years until Kaja reminded me how much I liked it. 

My recent research shows that Jinny Beyer has free templates for 6, 10 and 12 inch Stone Mason's Puzzle blocks based on the Ladies's Art Company 1922 block. I still didn't like all that cutting, all those angled pieces, some reversed. I never remember to put the template on the fabric the correct way when there are reverse blocks.  But I was tempted by those templates and a small six inch block because I love scrappy small blocks. 

Then...

As you have seen the last few Wednesdays I've been making Spider Web blocks. While making those blocks an idea popped into my head as to how lazy me could make the Stone Mason's Puzzle. I gave the idea a try. 

 I cut 9.5 inch pieces of newspaper for foundations and  I made two blocks exactly the same. 

I cut strips and sewed them to the foundation, keeping both sides of the center strip the same. My center strip (aqua brown steam punk) is 3 inches, next pieces (orange) are 1.5 inches, the next two pieces (brown arrows and gold floral) are 2 inches and the corners are 2.5 inch squares cut in half. 

 Trim to 9.5 inches. 

 Cut on the diagonal making sure the block is oriented properly. 

Tear paper foundation off the back of four quarters. 

 They will be assembled like above...like I've been assembling Spider Web blocks...

 ...sew together the top two quarters, the bottom two quarters and then sew those halves together for a roughly 12 inch block.   

I notice that a lot of the versions of Stone Mason's Puzzle have a center square.  I might experiment with that by adding "flippy corners" to the center of the quarters before they are sewn together.  I also see a lot of the versions have all the same sized pieces. I might make some blocks substituting the 3 inch center and two 1.5 inch side pieces with two inch strips. When sewn together either sets of 3 center strips equals 5 inches. 

I also think I noticed last month when the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month was aqua that aqua/teal/turquoise/sea foam, etc. goes well with every color. So I'm going to test that theory by using aqua in each block. Aqua is my neutral. 

Serendipity!