52 Photos Project: Polka Dots

Did you know there is such a thing as fear of polka dots?  Or at least an overwhelming hatred of them.  I had a roommate who had this problem.  Seriously.  After daily observation of her obvious discomfort, I developed a theory.  There are polka dot patterns that make almost everyone who looks at them a little bit dizzy & just maybe some of us are more sensitive to a broader range of that repeating, monotonous pattern.

Don't get me wrong, I love polka dots.  I avoided wearing them whenever I spent time with A**.  After all, who wants to spend time with a person having a low-grade, drawn out panic attack even if you don't care about them?  But in my quilting life, old fashioned white-on-white dotted swiss is my go to background fabric.  Gray dots on white & white dots on gray were a huge part of the Bird Trap quilt. In fact, it was not until I made the Bird Trap quilt I realized how overboard for dots I am.

No this was not just an excuse to talk about the Bird Trap quilt (for what I am hoping will be the last time....this year...but I make no promises).  Over at 52 Photos Project the weekly assignment is polka dots. 

Bloggers Quilt Festival Autumn 2013: Bird Trap, the first

Ordinarily I try to put something not before posted in the Blogger's Quilt Festival but I am still in love Love LOVE with the Bird Trap Quilt.  So everyone who has had too much of this quilt, just scroll through & look at the pictures (they are mostly new, I promise) but for new-to-Bird-Trapers here is the short version:

I became enamored of an image of a quilt I saw in a book (Maude Wahlman's Signs & Symbols: African Images in African American Quilts), specifically Pecolia Warner's Bird Trap Quilt which I am pretty sure resides at The Belger Arts Center in Kansas City, Mississippi although I have never seen it in person. You can see a close up of the inspiration for my Bloggers Quilt Festival entry here, but if you are really interested there are more pictures in the book or even better you could call The Belger Arts Center (something I have never done) & ask them if you could see it in person.

& before I get even more distracted with the story of this quilt, let me give the vitals.  This quilt measures  56" wide by 60" tall more or less.  It was pieced & quilted on my home machine a Bernina 153.  Bird Trap was assembled this year (2013) using blocks that were also made in 2013 mostly although the first samples were made in late 2012.  I entered bird Trap in the Autumn 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival scrappy quilts & home machine quilted quilts.  When I entered this quilt in a show earlier this year, I put it in art quilts, but only because it didn't really fall into the other categories, which were mostly variations on pieced.

The blocks came more or less right out of my head, after being kick started by the original, with the exception of the pieced birds.  Those birds are NOT foundation pieced, they came from a Block Lotto pattern earlier this year that I altered (big surprise).  The quilt top is all cotton....I think.  I spent some time rooting round in old remnant bins, scrap bags, etc. & the origin of that black & white gingham is a bit sketchy. 

The back of the quilt is a single piece of bleached muslin, with leftover bird trap parts making the label.  There really isn't much to see here except maybe the quilting, which is my lazy version of corner to corner (I neither mark the lines, nor do I always go all the way to the corner).

The arrangements of the blocks was even less organized.  I started with a center block, thinking it would be a 3x3 arrangement.  I picked my nine blocks.  They were, if you are curious the three blocks in the middle of the top row  & the two rows of three that kinda fall beneath them.  Then I got distracted making birds & sort of swung those in at the side & then the lower left birds became a panel & then it all went to hell.  When I said this all to my husband he said he could see it, the off-center center & the pushed out sides & maybe you can, too.

Now for the quilt story extended mix: I fell so immediately & completely for the elements of this block pattern that I have trouble seeing it today without wondering what is WRONG with people who are not similarly afflicted.  On the flip side my mother said she thought this was one of the ugliest things she had ever seen anyone do on purpose & label "art"*.  I like to think she has since changed her mind; she certainly came on board when I started putting up pictures of blocks based oh-so-loosely on the original.  I say oh-so-loosely because I more or less skipped over the historical references, meanings & went straight to listing the shapes & other varieties that most of the blocks had in common.  Yes, I am a philistine. 

So that it part one.  Part two is that the Facebook Quilt Block Swap group, while more popular every day had become a bit of a snooze for me.  I was sort of tired of thinking up limited feature blocks or themes or whatever & throwing them out there.  There has to be some unifying feature after all, a particular block or range of colors or whatever & it began to feel same-y  Don't get me wrong I enjoy it more than I don't (I wouldn't do it if I didn't, it's not like I get paid), it's just that by the time any swap actually happens I am sick of looking at it.

In my defense, I make several of every block whether I like it or not, in order to work out the written directions, etc. & I often get to the other end wishing I could start over with something just a bit further down the creative road.  I think I heard/read once that Alex Van Halen wished they could record the album at the end of the tour after they had really explored the music but of course, if you do that no one comes to the concert because they don't know what you are playing & that is just bad business.  Despite being a drummer, I suspect AVH might have more brains than a bag of hair-not that I think drummers are stoopid, my husband was a drummer & he is smarter than most people about most things. .

Where was I?  Oh right, Alex Van Halen if he ever said that & if he were a quilter syndrome.  So I was percolating a year-long, less guidance from me type swap (which became the Rainbow Connection & was hugely popular, if you are curious) & in the way these things happen -to me anyhow- instead of one idea I ended up with two & I couldn't really decide which was better.  So I floated them both.  As I said Rainbow Connection caught like a wildfire & I think I could run it another year, but I am not going to because even with minimal guidance from me I am a little burned out on ROYGBP.

Bird Trap has been so much slower & I don't much care because I LOVE it.  I am still loving it; yes I have enough for another 3x3 block arrangement & am still making more.  You could love it, too:  sign up is open until Hallowe'en & the blocks aren't due until the last Saturday in November.  To be fair, it took me more than a month to settle into the pattern- more like four, minimum- so I'm not sure jumping in now would be as much fun as jumping in ten months ago was.  Of course you can always join our 2014 swap What Burgoyne Begat.

*October 27, 2013: I should clarify, it was the inspiration quilt my mom spoke ill of, not my quilt.  She says nothing but nice things to me about my own quilts.

Bird trap gone

So.  It is finished & off to Quiltfest 2013 in Jacksonville, FL.  It is hard to think of something to say that I haven't already said:

• the swap that inspired this quilt doesn't close until Hallowe'en & then the blocks are due the last SAT in November 2013.  You can get the details here or even better in the Facebook Quilt Block Swap group.
• I made way more blocks than I need for the swap.  Enough for this quilt...& another top I have already started working on.  In my defense...I have no defense, I just like this block.  Or rather the guidelines that go into it as there is no exact "block".
• I don't think it hangs straight.  I thought I had squared it up...mostly, but after I washed it, it got MORE crooked.  I didn't know that could happen.

Oh, here is something new!  The Quiltfest JAX form was a bit of a challenge.  I could not decide "pieced quilt" or "art quilt".  I polled several quilters & with one exception they all said pieced quilt.  Then I took a look in the past pieced quilt winners & decided art quilt was the way to go.  What can I say, those pieced quilts were so even & harmonious & regular.  I am fully aware the Bird Trap Quilt cannot compete; I truly have no expectations of accolades of any kind.  The competition is just as fierce over in Art Quilts.  I just thought this would be too disruptive in Pieced Quilts.  Also & I know this is no big deal, there is just the teeny-tiniest bit of embroidery.

The theme this year in JAX is "Quilting Thru the Ages".  Not through the ages but thru the ages.  So I don't feel so bad about entering my rip-off of an african-american quilt top that could have been made during the Civil War was but was actually made in the late 20th century. 

& the word du jour is ERSATZ. 

52 Photos Project: On the Line

On the line can mean a lot of things.  I grew up in the north east where public transport is much more viable.  Being able to dig & put stuff underground helps.  So does a mindset that doesn't view every public project as an opportunity to line someone's pockets.  Seriously, anyone who doesn't understand the willingness to go to hell with the sequester should spend a little time at a below-the-Mason-Dixon small town meeting.  There is always SOMEONE convinced that someone else is making more than his share of cash off of, well, anything. Here, we go through regular gyrations about how much should be spent on a public library system that really is one of the best & most utilized in the country.  My favorite council meeting mini-series was the guy who ranted every time the garbage pick up rates were reapproved.  Prepare to be shocked, but it costs money to haul garbage.  Believe it or not those guys working in Fladidah heat, driving a heavy stinky truck are not volunteers.  Also & I'm not sure whathisname noticed but gas prices are higher & higher.  One iteration, the council was so fed up they extended the deadline so he would have time to submit a bid hoping that would shut him up, but he was back, bidless & bitching at the next meeting. 

I digress.

On the line used to mean, to me anyhow, that someone was pretty close to a stop.  A tube stop or a bus stop or whatever.  Then it became all tangled with deadline & "your job is on the line".  Life or death type stuff, or at least livelihood or termination.

Nowadays, on the line is something I am mostly interested in not being; outside the lines is so much more fun.   In the case of this week's photo, in the lines was not really an option as I so completely left the directions behind I had to stitch in my own lines.

Back on Block Lotto

I accidentally sat out last month's Block Lotto.  I had blocks made but because of home network stoopidness & bad weather & being out of tow, I never posted them.  I am taking no chances this month; I put up the first block I made & am putting together many more.  Because I want to WIN.

In the meantime, here is one of the I-Spy houses made from, you guessed it Bird Trap block fabric.  I am thinking of launching a whole new set of bird traps around this I-Spy theme.   After all, I have plenty of fussy cut fabric.

As for the Bird Trap quilt itself, I am getting the final square-em-up borders on today.  I hope.  I decided against one outer border & have started to put on a few narrow borders to slowly bring it back in line.  In square.  In rectangle, I guess. 

I am also toying with entering it in a quilt show happening in September.  The submission deadline is later this month & I really should be done.  On the other hand, this show while charming is a bit old fashioned.  I am thinking this might be too weird.  Eh, I have plenty of time to decide.  Unless I drag my feet & miss the deadline & then the decision is made that way.

Bird trap quilt block quilt top (almost)

As promised, I dialed down the posts about the bird trap quilt block, but I did not stop making these blocks.  I am crazy addicted to these blocks.  I cannot see a time when I am not running these through the machine; I hoard every weird shaped scrap or left-over 1/2-square triangle & I look forward to the one (or two or three) days a month I let myself play with them. 

Yes, I am that sad.

So without further ado, here is the first, almost complete bird trap quilt block top.  Yesterday, A helped me measure the sides because they are waaaaay out of sinc.  Over an inch difference from the left to the right side; I usually go borderless with any out-of-my-head quilts because they just don't need them & when I am done I like to be DONE (no, I am not OCD when it comes to measuring, it's just that the same ruler, the same machine, the same presser foot usually add up to the same size edges...but not this time).  & while the not-square shape would make it even more like the original bird trap quilt block quilt, I decided I would be happier if it was squarer.  Or at least rectangler.

& now the quilt:

There is a lot going on here (just the way I like it!).  There are seven (7) blocks that actually meet the criteria for the Facebook Bird Trap Quilt Block swap & two that don't (mostly because they are too big).  There are others that could have met the requirements if I had kept going (they were undersized & missing a few rounds) but I already had the nine (9) to swap & plenty of extras (yes, another quilt top worth if you must know). 

Also in here are many birds from the April 2013 Block Lotto pattern, sort of.  As with some of the bird trap blocks, these also did not meet the criteria (& FYI that little legless one at the bottom there will get legs, I need to embroider them in as she is too small for the pieced-stick legs) so I kept them.  Okay, I made them to keep, they were never going to the Block Lotto.

I should be clear, the bird trap quilt block does not actually require birds, but I saw that birdcage fabric & well.  Then as I was wrapping those up, the Block Lotto birds got posted & well.  So. 

There are still plenty of spaces in the swap if you are interested.  Your quilt top won't look like this ( my next quilt top made from blocks made from these same fabrics won't look like this), but do you really care?  Wouldn't you rather have one of your own one of a kind?  & lastly, if you came over from Block Lotto - Weekend Update: Welcome!

My debt to society

I won the Block Lotto in February.  That's right, after dropping out for a looooong time, I returned last month & won right away.  Which means I have a debt of 38 blocks (that is how many I won) I need to pay.  Well, want to pay.

So in March I made I don't-know-how-many blocks (I just checked: 11).  It was a simple block & one of the key colors was gray, which I have in abundance because of, you guessed it-Bird Trap Blocks.  Now that I think about it, I shipped off all 9 of the heart blocks I made in February (& then mad so many many more).  Which means that as of March 31, I have paid back 20 of the 38 blocks.

I realize that I might be the only person who thinks of the Block Lotto this way.  & I admit that I have been known to start out thinking this way & then sort of fallen off the....wagon?  This is not the first time I have won Block Lotto.  It is not even the second time I have won.  It would be the fourth or fifth time I won except that once (or twice, I forget), I had donated my blocks & they got scrambled in & I won!  But I threw them back.

Flash back to a completely different situation.  Well, not completely different, it is still a quilting situation.  My first Bird Trap block quilt top is ALMOST finished.  Flash further back: I made so many bird trap bocks & I get a lot of inquiries about the swao but notso many commitments I thought maybe, just maybe a completed op would show what potential the block has & then

Then this month's Block Lotto block arrived in my mailbox & I want it.  I don't necessarily want to win, I just want to keep my own.  So I made two for the swap & uhm a dozen in the wrong size(s) & wrong color(s) so I guess they just don't count.  Guess I will have to keep them.  Leaving my debt to the Block Lotto society hovering at -18.  

More than I can chew

I have been compulsively working on Bird Trap Blocks for weeks now & trying so hard to keep from blogging about it every day.  Because I cannot stop thinking about Bird Traps, I cannot stop talking about Bird Traps.  You people are lucky, anyone I can get on the phone not so much.  All my waking hours, some part of my brain is arranging, re-arranging; I rotate them, I imagine different parts coming together, I cannot stop. 

Because the Bird Trap Blocks are improv (I like to call it jazz piecing), there never was a set of directions.  One of the guidelines is a plank round of 1/2-square triangles.  In short, I am cranking through 1/2-square triangles.  & the big question everyone who asks about this block is where did they all come from?

In the other side of this post, Block Lotto's week-end update this week is all about How-To's.  So this is my How To tip.  How to take a bit of extra time & build up a supply of random 1/2-square triangles that you might never use...unless you decide to make Bird Traps along with me. 

& now for the meat.  A couple of years ago I made a quilt top of rainbow colored rolling stone blocks.  I was approached by a friend who was looking for a rainbow themed quilt for a regional GLBT fundraiser.  I made the top in a bit less than 5 days.  That's soup to nuts, telephone call to mailing the top off.   I never took a picture of the original & the pics I got of the completed quilt were not digital or I would share, but I loved the top & have been thinking about making one for myself ever since I made it.  So here are the blocks I have made so far for the quilt for myself; the fabrics are different, but the color-concept is the same.

What does that have to do with anything at all?   am glad you asked.  See those on point squares at each corner?  Well, each one of them began as a 4.5" square & then had little squares added, flipped, pressed & clipped to make them what you see.  This means that every single rolling stone had 16 orphan, 1/2-square triangles cut away as scrap.  & all it took was an extra swoop in the chain piecing to gather them together.  This quilt top (& the original) is a 4x4 pattern, at 16 leftover units per block, that means a total of 256 1/2-square triangles going spare. 

If this all sounds a little bit compulsive, I hear you.  & after all I had no idea I was going to be Bird Trap Block possessed when I started down this road.  On the other hand, without that cache of trash I probably would never have thought improv block design was an option. 

Besides, this random piecing has served me well before.  One of my favorite quilts began as the same 1/2-square triangle leftovers from a very large churn dash block table runner.  One of my go-to baby gift quilts (& grown-up quilts) begins with strings.  & I have never been put off just because none of the pieces really fit together.

So my tip?  Uhm.  I guess, if you are already sitting there, piecing & cutting, what's one more for the pile? 

Some birdtrap block tips

Another week, another round on the birdtrap blocks.  I know, I know I need to get a life.  Or at least broaden this one.  But I have a few completed blocks & I thought, just in case someone was thinking of trying this on their own (or even joining the swap in Facebook) I would toss out some pointers:

You can never have enough 1/2-square triangles.  In a wide range of sizes, although generally the smaller they are, the more useful they are.  Whenever you have a minute, slice a few more squares, make that line down the back & keep them handy for catching threads between "real" pieces.

Plan on making odd-width planks.  While it was a requirement in this swap, I would do it either way.  Those unplanned-width borders meant that I could put together pieced strips as close as possible to the correct length of existing blocks for the adjacent rows & then square them up.  I am too embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to realize this, but once I did things went much more smoothly.

Less is not more.  Just to see what it looked like I made one block that was almost the bare minimum.  It meets every requirement without fanfare & then goes just one step further (one more round than required).  It is not impressive.  Don't get me wrong, it is cute all on its own, but once you see the others it is just too.....drab. 

Sometimes more is too much,  That's right, despite the very relaxed final measurement guidelines (more like a window really- 10.5 to 12.5 by 10.5 to 12.5), I still managed to make more than one block too big.  For this reason I would recommend ending on one of those versatile-width plank rows.  That is why I would also suggest making yourself a block specific ruler.  In my case, I cut two pieces of paper & taped them together at a right angle.  One of them is 10.5" long (the minimum the block can be) & the other is 12.5" long, the maximum the block can be.  Actually they are both 10.5" long & 2" wide, I think you can figure it out from there.  This way I can...going forward...be sure my blocks all fall in the size range.

My decision to make extras (failure to keep track of how many I started & then an Oh What The Hell approach to continuing) means I will have my nine to swap even without the gaffes.  In a strange turn about, I kind of want to keep everyone I have finished so far.  Anyone who knows me should gasp at this point.  I almost never keep the quilts I make.  I have one hanging in my dining room I was preparing to give away when my husband said he kind of liked it, so I didn't.  There is another quilt in the tv room, also for my husband.  The quilt on our bed came from Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Hopefully the November 2013 deadline will give me enough time to gaze at them & then send them on to their rightful homes.  Or enough time to make more.  Lots more.

& as a sidebar:  this morning, this post is the first time I am participating in the Weekend Update over at Block Lotto.  Hello Block Lotto, I miss you!  I do plan to jump back in, honest I do.

Birds encore

I gave another afternoon late last week over to the bird trap block.  I don't know why I have connected so strongly with this idea, but whatever.  & quite by accident I decided to make my blocks all together.  This made it easier to knock off requirements as I went, but I think it has also given them a kind of theme they would not otherwise have. 

First, I looked over all the center pieces I made over a week ago, which was PLENTY.  Predicting I was likely to astray with at least one of them I actually made more than a dozen centers, not just the swap total of nine.  While not a requirement, I had decided to start with a fabric that had the images of birds & bird cages.  In this round I met the one plank should be a different width than the others.  I was working with strips out of my scrap bag, so this was quite easy.  In one case I found a short strip of 1/2-square triangles that matched length-wise with one of the blocks, so I used it. 

Many of these strip scraps were also solid (not read-as-solid but solid-solid) which was one of the requirement, but I didn't use the solid strips for all f them from the start.  So, while it will help with block cohesion, it didn't cross that one off my list. 

This time I got a little bit more organized.  I went through & pulled all the solid strips that were between 2" & 3" wide & realized I had quite a bit of green, in several different medium value shades.  I'm not sure why exactly; I think maybe from a 30s round robin I was part of YEARS ago.  The 30s theme was chosen after sign up or I never would have been part of it.  I have nothing against 30s fabric exactly, but I have a limited liking of teeny-eeny prints.  Depending on how they are arranged on the fabric, they sometimes start to vibrate & make me woozy.  & then the destination for the raffle funds got changed after the raffles began &...well let's just say 30s prints & Machiavellian behavior have been linked for me &now I have a whole host of reasons they make me uncomfortable.

Anyhow, I vaguely remember thinking solids were just as authentic & making my rows from them instead of the bleary-making kittens & ballerinas & flowers upon flowers upon little dots that might be more flowers.  Another possibility is the foundation free workshops I did a few years ago.  People brought their own strips, but were encouraged to trade & at the end of every workshop, there were always leftovers that I swept into my basket.  Whatever the reason, I had a number of solid green-in-many shades scrap strips.

I cut these solid strips into squares, matched them w/ like-sized squares of the bird fabric & other scraps in the same color theme, & made 1/2-square triangles (another requirement- one of the plank rounds needed to be piece.  I suggested 1/2-square triangles, but any pieced plank would be fine).

I had added the 1/2-square triangle round to maybe 4 or 5 blocks when I realized NONE & I mean NONE of my scraps were a large scale print.  That was the last requirement I needed to meet (the small scale print requirement was met over & over again in pretty much everything that was not a solid), but I had nothing large scale.  I briefly thought about calling the bird/bird cage print itself large scale & I am still not sure that would have been a cheating, but just in case I hunted until I found one of those all over not-quite-paisley, not quite floral two-tone things.  I used it in the smaller 1/2-square triangles & got a bit nervous that it was not visible enough to be identified as a large scale print, but lets face it this whole swap thing has an honor system quality to it & I KNOW it is as large a pattern as you will every find, just not very high contrast. 

& that is where I am now.  None of the blocks are done & one of them is hideously misshapen, so I will be pulling that out & seeing what the problem is.  In most cases I just have one more round to go to bring it up to size- easily leap-frogging the at east two rounds requirement -& then I am done.  Hopefully freeing my brain to work on more current projects.

Beginning bird trap building

I have I cannot even count how many swaps going right now & the one with the furthest out deadline is the Birdtrap Swap.  So naturally that is the one I want to work on.  I resisted for a week, finished my own every other month swap blocks for February, started sketching my Rainbow Connection block for March & then I just gave in.

Although it was not a requirement (& still isn't) I wanted to have a bird somewhere in my bird trap.  I decided on a fabric with birds in & out of cages & even a few empty cages.  I fussy cut some birds & bordered them up with what was on the top of the scrap pile.  Some of it was a small print (one requirement), some of it was a solid -not a read-as-solid but an actual solid- (another requirement).  Because I wasn't using a ruler for anything but a straight edge, not one of these even began the same size.  Once they were bordered, courthouse steps style with whatever scrap-strip bubbled to the top of the scrap bin, they were not remotely similar, not square, the centers weren't centered...they were just all different.

The advantage of this is that no matter what comes next, it is a small matter to shave bits off the sides to make the next round work (or to add another border, if that is what it takes but frankly I wanted a pieced row as early as possible.

I dug around in the strip scrap bin (yes, my scraps are sorted by general shape, squares/rectangles versus strips versus irregular post-fussy cut leftovers) & came up with a 2" strip of solid because some but not all of the starting pieces had solid borders & I figured I may as well get them all in the same place as far as meeting requirements goes.  I cut those into 2" squares, found another 2" strip not caring much what it was.  As it happens it is the word BABY over & over again; I have no idea where it came from.  Maybe a binding?. Anyhow, I cut that into squares as well & made rather small 1/2-square triangles for the next round.

& that is as far as I have gotten, more or less.  There is a shrinking pile of 1/2 square triangles, so the next step will be to make another collection of those.  I have one last  fabric requirement to deal with:  a large scale print.  I wish the person organizing the swap had been clearer about what constitutes large scale.  Does the bird/bird cages fabric meet it?  The images are all about 1-3" which is not super large, but the all over print repeats only every 1/3 of a yard or so (less than the outsized 5/8 of a yard, but still big...yes?).  So how do we measure a large scale, by the elements or by the repeat?  Unfortunately,  I don't know which one I meant so I guess I am just gonna let it ride.  & maybe look for a big floral to cover all the bases.

At this moment, the largest of the blocks is approximately 7" by....I'm gonna say more or less 7", although you know that is all just ballpark, right?  So I need another 4", give or take before I am done.  I am putting those more complete blocks aside so I can catch up the others.  Also, I need to answer that whole "what is a large scale print?" question.

I should also mention that the whole time I have been resisting thinking about, then thinking about then working on & now thinking again about these bird trap quilt blocks, I have been unable to get this bird song out of my brain.

Bird trap swap, not for the faint of heart

I have had my heart set on making a birdtrap quilt like the one at the Belger Art Center since I first saw it in Maude Wahlman's book Signs & symbols : African images in African-American quilts.  I have even made a few passes & I think I have come up with a very broad set of guidelines that will work well for a swap.

Before we begin however, I would encourage everyone who thinks they might be interested to take a look at the quilt I am talking about.   The bird trap quilt was made by Pecolia Warner in the 20th century, but it looks like it could have been in use a hundred years or more ago.  The design is simple, sort of, but there is a lot going on, & not just because it is made of leftovers & scraps.

The basic design is a center piece of some kind & then four sides "built up" in either the traditional log cabin style or courthouse steps style or some combination of the two, made either by wrapping the planks around the center or building out from the center by adding a border to two opposite sides & then the other two sides.  If this is hard to  follow, I think a quick look at the links will clear this up.  Mixed in with the solid planks are pieced planks, most often strips of 1/2-square triangles.  & last but not least, not one of these blocks is perfectly square.

To make our bird trap swap blocks you will need a minimum of four fabrics (& very likely more-remember use those scraps up!) :  one fabric must be an actual solid, one fabric must be a large scale print, one fabric most be a small scale print & the fourth is your choice.  The fifth, sixth, seventh, etc. are also all your choice as well.

You will begin with a center block of not less than 2" square & not more than 4.5" square.  If the center is less than 3", it can be a single solid piece, but if it is 3" or more, it should be pieced.

Next you will add your "planks" to all four sides in whatever order pleases you.  You must have at least two planks on each side, but you may have more.  At least one plank in the completed block should be partially or wholly made of 1/2- square triangle pieces.  Lastly, at least one plank in the completed block should be a different width than the others.  They can all be different, actually, but only one must be.

Finally, your block should be between 10.5"-12.5" by 10.5"-12.5" when finished.  It is entirely possible your block will not be square & that is just fine-neither were any in the inspiration quilt.  The swapped blocks you get back will also be of different shapes & sizes (well not too different, the blocks are that are not square, will certainly be rectangle).  As in the inspiration quilt, you can use your sashing to unify them & pull the whole thing together.

Right now, sign-up is open to as many as want to participate.  Each person should make nine (9) bird trap blocks, keep one & send eight.  If we have nine or more participants, everyone will get a block from a different person.  If we have fewer, the blocks will be shuffled between everyone.  You will certainly get more than one from some people BUT as the block itself is so scrappy this should not be an issue.

Blocks are due the last Saturday in November, November 30, 2013.  You can sign up either in the comments here or in the Facebook Quilt Block Swap group.