Signature Block Quilt – OccasionalPiece

I’ve done several types of signature blocks, so thought I’d update my tutorial on how to make a signature block for friends. The basic kind I make (L) is a small block, that the people in the Bees I participate in, send with their blocks. The larger size (R) is suitable for a friendship quilt, which we made for our friend Lora when she moved away.

Cut one white, or light, 3 1/2″ square and two 2 1/2″ squares. I like to use the fabric that was in my block that I sent. (Click on any circle to enlarge it.)

Place the smaller block on the top of the larger block, aligning corners, right sides together, and draw a diagonal line. Stitch one-to-two threads away from this line, towards the corner. This is the same technique used when making snowball blocks, in order to give room for the fabric to turn over the stitching line. Trim off the excess corner, leaving 1/4″.

In Circle 1, I’ve trimmed away the excess fabric and pressed the block. The center should measure about 1 1/2″ wide (Circle 2). In the last circle (seen from the back), I pressed a scrap of freezer paper, shiny side down, to the wrong side of the white strip in order to stabilize the area where I’ll be writing.

I’ve made myself a card that I place underneath the white area, to help keep my writing aligned; I use paper clips to keep it in place. I use a Micron Pigma 08 pen to write.

What to write on a Signature Block that is included with bee blocks? In our bee, we suggest: Name, IG name, the date (in smaller writing) and the city where the quilter lives.

When making the larger signature blocks (quilt shown above), I used a 6 1/2″ white square and a 5″ contrast square. It gave a good amount of room for Lora’s friends to write their names. I did back every white part with strips of freezer paper, and collected signatures from all the church ladies to give her a good send-off. Many wanted to write a message, but we encouraged them to just leave a signature.

I’m sure you can see the double stitching on the corner. Because this was a larger block, I did two lines of stitching on those corners, 1/2″ apart, then cut right down the middle when I trimmed. That yielded a sweet-sized HST to use for other projects.

Signatures

Some time ago, I made myself a signature quilt, collecting names of those who were significant to me at that time in my life. Some six years later, all these sweet granddaughters who signed a block (above) have grown up.

SilverGold_draped — *Silver and Gold*, 2013

In this case, I used the center of the King’s Crown Block (also the basis for the popular Meadowland block that is currently all the rage; see below), sending around white blocks of fabric backed with squares of freezer paper all over the country, asking them to write their names in pencil (which I later traced over with my Micron Pigma 08 pen).

However or whatever your need for signature blocks are, I hope these tips are helpful!

KingsCrown_Meadlowland Quilt Blocks

Photo Gallery Label

Sampler Quilt 2015with Sigs — I’ve circled where I used my beemates signature blocks.

Signature Blocks19_11 — This shows the signature blocks of my beemates set in the back of a recently finished quilt, like kiss marks (sweet thought!).

Piggies-signature blocks — I inserted the signature blocks in a row on the back of this quilt, with my “label” the same size and shape in lower left.

Piggies2_back

Lora suddenly moved away and two of us in our church group decided she needed a quilt to remember us. One day she was here, puttering around in her house. Then a fall, where she wasn’t discovered, which led a brief stay in a skilled nursing home. Her children rallied round her and took her to live near them, where Lora can be cared for. So I went looking for ideas for a signature quilt (see them at the bottom of this post), and decided on the basic signature quilt block since it needed to be put together quickly. My friend Lisa (who is our friend’s niece) and I decided on a 6″ block.

For every signature block, cut one bigger square in a light color (so the signatures will show) and two contrast squares. The dimensions are above. You can see that I double-stitched the diagonal seam, the lines 1/2″ apart. I then cut in between that line so I could have some HSTs in case we needed more places for signatures. In case you haven’t done one of these, the directions are:

1–Line up the contrast square with the light-colored square and sew a diagonal. I use The Angler tool from Pam Bono so I don’t have to draw lines. Stitch a batch of blocks, then go back in and stitch 1/2″ away.

2– Cut in between the two stitched lines, then press the contrast fabric away from the center white block. (Set aside the cut-off triangle. You’ll now have a growing stack of Half-Square Triangles (HSTs) for another project!)

3– Sew the other side (which is what you see above).

Done. I then cut a bunch of strips of freezer paper and ironed them on the back of the white strip, so to make it easier to sign. We’ll have them sign with a Micron Pigma Pen .08 as it leaves a nice line.

This same process is the one I follow when we make Signature Blocks for our bee, only we use the light colored fabric cut to a 3 1/2″ square and the contrasting “snowball” blocks are 2 1/2″. I don’t save the triangles on those.

I finished 74 squares this past couple of days. Isn’t the fabric beautiful? Lisa has a whole collection of batiks which she graciously contributed to this project. (Yeah. I contributed the Kona Snow.)

I signed mine so you can see what it looks like.

Here’s a signature quilt, pulled from the web (sorry, I don’t have the attribution), and they used their extra HSTs in the borders.

Here’s another version, without borders.

Lora, in her earlier years, made wedding cakes. The rich, the famous, the well-heeled, and well, all of the young girls in our church all sought out her cakes, because not only did they look elegant and beautiful, they tasted good. Rich and yummy, full of vanilla fragrance and just the right amount of sweetness to make you come back for seconds. Or thirds. For my daughter’s wedding, she also made a double-fudgey chocolate groom’s cake. It was only at the very end, a year ago, that she gave two of us her secret recipe for the frosting, and the secret ingredient that made my kitchen smell like her cake was baking right there. She also did flowers, interior decorating, and we loved it when she decorated the church hall at Christmastime for our church dinner, transforming it to a winter wonderland, making us all feel like we were the rich, the famous, and the well-heeled, instead a bunch of modest church-goers. Lora did everything up Big. Every year she would get the giant wreath out of the storage closet at our church, get a ladder and hang it up on the wall behind the speaker’s podium, arranging and re-arranging the red glass balls so they looked like someone just tossed them up there. That look takes real skill. Lora was part of the warp and weft of our church, and while some say she’ll be back, others say she won’t.

I think the reason why this affected us all so much is that within the space of a couple of weeks, Lora’s life spun around on a dime and her life in her home, which she had decorated in rich autumns and golds, was probably over. That quickly. Yes, she’d had some health problems. Yes, we knew she was more frail. But how our lives in our carefully curated homes end is not something any of us like to think about. So a fall can happen, or a sudden health reversal, and like a flash, we can be taken from our collections, our quilts, our memories: a sudden shearing off of a life. And what happened to Lora is right around the proverbial corner for all of us, and we know it. So perhaps by making her this quilt, we are saying we understand. To the best of our abilities at this younger times in our lives, our hearts ache for you.

With this quilt we are saying, Lora, you are not forgotten.