Cross and X Quilt Block

In my last post I talked about Zombie Quilt Night.  Well, at least that’s how I felt.

So, in exploring my really overwhelming list of blogs in my Google Reader, I began to see this block appear:

and

These two are made by a quilter in London, and these photos are from her blog.  I found the Flikr pool if you want to see some more.  I like these blocks because it’s obvious you can use scraps and whatever, so long as you use a bland background and differentiate the cross fabrics from the X fabrics.  The blocks together look like this:

and

These are from Stawberrylicious’ photo stream, but couldn’t locate her blog (I admit to being dumb untutored about Flikr, yessirree). It’s nice to feel some enthusiasm for a new idea–that always gets my hands into the fabric.  There’s lots of potential for novelty fabrics and word fabrics, and cool prints.

(Update: I found her blog.  You have to be invited to view it.)

This interest in an old block by Nancy Cabot was apparently generated by Setsuko Inagawa’s quilt:

Somebody with a blog named Badskirt has developed a tutorial for this, and although the pictures are spot on, I am doing some wondering about the measurements. See below.

I kept looking at the blocks on Flikr and noticed that the angled wedge didn’t always line up properly into the cross in the middle.  I drew it up on my quilt program:

I realized part of the trouble many of the blocks I found on the web seemed to be a 7″ block.  But this is a five-segmented block, so the measurements are more true if they are done in units of five: 5″ block, 7.5,” 10″ block etc.   So, I checked her measurements–they are fine–so what I saw constructed may have been others not being careful, or using incorrect measurements.

For a 10″ block, the templates (with seam allowances included) look like this, with that long center strip 2.5″ x 6.5″, the square measuring 4.5″ and the other small blocks 2.5.”  My program prints out the snowball blocks as two triangles, which I cut out and tape together to get the measurement.  Or–just just cut squares 2.5.”  I’ll probably stick with the 7 1/2-inch blocks because I like the repetition of the small blocks.

I wonder if anyone else is like me–that even when you’re working on a project, you need a spark now and again to keep interest.  I heard an interview with Andrew Zuckerman on Swiss Miss’ Creative Mornings series and he said “I hate every project three months in.  I’m exhausted.  I’m questioning whether it’s any good.  I’m unhappy.  [But] that’s just the process.  You have to get through that.  You have to commit. . . there’s no pulling out–it has to work.  And then it works out, because of the commitment.  There’s always failure when you don’t see it through fully.”

Just knowing I have Cross and X block possibilities in the back of my mind, will help me get through the Lollypop Trees process.  I hope.