Well I'm sure you all have been waiting to the February Block!!!! I finished it last night.. It is a paper pieced block by Carol Doak called "Cross My Heart Block" here is the link http://www.www.caroldoak.com/free-quilt-patterns.php
If you go down the page about 3/4 of the way you will see it. Her block is done in Blue and Reds and I felt that if you changed the blues to green it would look like tulips instead and they would be heart shaped.. There is an excellant tutorial in our quilting board explaining paper piecing!!! I look so forward to seeing all your blocks for February!! By the way.. Happy Early Valentines Day!

I have never tried PP but I may give this a try. It says it is 6" finished do you suppose there will be this size?

you have to make four of the blocks. when put together they create a 12" [finished] block.

Thanks I was thinking that becasue you have to make 4 copies.

I sure hope everyone has fun with this one I will enjoy looking at your blocks. I wonder can this be done accurately without paper piecing as I have discovered that is not something I enjoy at all.

Are you thinking of trying not to PP, too? Or maybe I should just say, "Oh well and give it a whirl"?


Notice the similarity of the 4 corner blocks to the Jan Sunflower block.

when i first saw the block, bearing in mind that last months block was challenging for me..I thought oh my lord look at all those pieces but then on closer inspection and after getting over my initial fear of all those pieces I noticed that it was four of the same block. So now I am saying to myself..I can do it..I can do it..I can do it...

paper piecing (pp) gives me fits, too. however, it's a valuable technique if you want to make complex blocks with bazillions of teeny tiny pieces. so, i encourage everyone to give it a shot with this block. this is a great block to practice pp since the overall pattern is fairly straightforward and the pieces are nice and big.

we can't do any tutorials for this block because it's an original Carol Doakes design. copyright protection prevents our doing anything but using it and enjoying the heck out of the blocks we make. (not a bad deal at all for something so pretty and so free. ;-) )

if you would rather piece it, just cut the pp pattern apart and add the seam allowances to may yourself handy templates. :-)

I am very worried about those real skinny points. The other pieces no problem but there is one strip that is cut only 1 and 1/2 or so inches wide and gets very tiny near the end that I think needs to be done very well or it will ruin the effect. Its a truly pretty block but with that tiny one and all those points that go right to the edge of the block... don't know. I will attempt it, post it and then everyone can see why I get anxious about this. I did a bunch of paper pieced attempts at the end of the year. I am moving to an area with lots of quilters maybe someone will be kind enough to sit down with me and do the keep it simple method so I can truly get it. I am a visual learner I think. Thanks for the support everyone. You have pushed me to at least attempt this one.

this block only looks difficult.... Just follow the piecing order.... I'm telling you I have only done 3 other designs before this one...Paperpiecing takes a bit longer to put together but the end result is really very nice and the points are just awesome.... Please give it a try. I am an newbie and I have to say I picked a paperpiece because that is the easiest type of block for me to make and have the points look good!