Anders' Modern Building Blocks Quilt: Block One Underway

I wasn't in my sewing room much this week, and I haven't touched the skirt again at all since my last post.  I've been busy with work, and squeezed in a couple of bike rides to enjoy the slightly cooler temperatures.  I got a bit of hand sewing done as I was out and about, stitching stems down on a couple of Frankenwhiggish Rose applique blocks while I was waiting in the carpool line and during a violin lesson. I also made preparations for the first block of Anders' new quilt. 

First Block Will Finish 30" x 30"

It's my 30" version of the 36" block in the Moda Modern Building Blocks quilt, which I resized to fit my son's twin bed.  Since I've been enjoying the stress-free, instantaneous perfection of foundation paper piecing for my little 6" sampler blocks, I eyed those many triangle points and decided to FPP the block.  This block is already in the EQ7 software's Block Library (or else it was in the Block Base 2 add on; can't remember where I found it), so I didn't have to draft it from scratch, and I was able to plop it into my quilt design at 30" and then click "print foundation patterns" for the block.  Easy peasy, except that the foundation patterns for a 30" block don't really fit on 8 1/2" x 11" newsprint paper...

Foundation Papers, Some Assembly Required

So this is what I got.  TWENTY sheets of paper, and as you can see in the photo above, some of my block segments needed to have as many as three pieces taped together once I'd cut them out.  I took my time cutting and taping them, knowing that the accuracy of paper piecing is only as good as the accuracy of the foundation papers.  Traditional piecing might have been a better way to go, except that the quarter square triangles needed to make this block in a 30" size are not "ruler friendly."  I would have had to cut out 7 3/16" squares and cross-cut them into QSTs (Quarter Square Triangles).  Yuck!

After carefully cutting and taping, I got this:

Foundation Papers Ready to Piece

I put a scribble of black, blue or green on each patch to help me keep track of which fabric goes where.  After taking this picture, I also planned the stitching order to ensure that I have opposing seam allowances when I join the segments together to form the block, and I numbered the patches accordingly.  And then I pressed my fabric and cut myself some oversized QSTs.  I didn't cut out the giant green triangles yet, though, because I haven't figured out how I want to cut them yet.  They are QSTs from a 19 3/16" square. 

But meanwhile, there's a skirt upstairs waiting to be finished, and that's what I'm going to work on today: Interfacing the skirt yoke with SF101, assembling and attaching the yoke to the skirt, and maybe if I'm lucky I'll even get to that invisible zipper (that I probably should have put in first).