The X Plus block made its rounds last year. I really liked the quilts I saw but never got around to making any blocks. I finally sat down with Badskirt’s tutorial earlier this week, looked at the instructions, and promptly said huh uh. No way. Not happening. I have a couple of issues here: first, the block finishes, as in not including seam allowance, at 7.5 inches according to the original (new) tutorial. That’s just a weird number. Why not 8? Well because the math is all weird. So it works great at 7.5, 12, and 15″ finished, but not 8″. OK fine, I could have lived with that, but then I saw exactly how many squares I would need to cut. All told, I would need 19 squares/rectangles to complete one block. All cut perfectly shaped and measured. Not. Happening. So I made a paper piecing template, obvs.
I still recommend you roughly precut your fabrics though. When you sort through your scraps, you’re looking for the following (keep in mind these will be oversized for ease of use):
Fabric requirements:
- 4 – 5 inch squarish pieces for the corners (the red fabrics in my example). I actually used leftover 4 inch wide, long strips for these.
- 1 – 4 inch by 16 inch strip of light fabric for the corner triangles (the black and white scribble fabric in my example).
- 1 – 3 inch by 10 inch strip of dark fabric for the center plus (the black crosshatch in my example).
- 1 – 3 inch by 6 inch strip of accent fabric for the outside of the plus (the aqua print in my example).
OK So here’s my example mockup in EQ7.
And here’s the one I made myself last night. I wish I’d done the aqua pieces – I’ll do that next time. Eesh, sorry for the iPhone picture, it was crazy dark this morning before I left for work!
Finishes at 8″ square, but sew 9 together to make a 24″ block for the conversion project.
And here’s the button. Clicky clicky! It’s free!
AWESOME! THANK YOU!
Thanks for the paper pieced version of this block! I appreciate it a lot, you have no idea.
I just found your blog today…I love your work!
Thanks Sharon!
I’m still looking for a paper pieced template for the 12″ finished…but this is awesome! Thank you!
Thanks Sarah. I appreciate your free patterns and I’ll use them to make quilts for charity. All the best Vicki 🙂