Summer Breeze

Last Saturday’s block, Pinwheel Spikes from the Pine Needles Sewing Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the only one of this year’s Patchwork Party blocks that came with a name attached. Until last year, all Patchwork Party blocks had names. In 2013 I simply named them for the shops I’d bought the kits from. I would have done the same thing this year, but nearly all of last year’s shops are involved again this year. (Quilt in a Day and Thimblecreek have been replaced by The Quilt Asylum and Suzanne’s Quilt Shop.) Instead, I took a page from Marti Michell’s book. She says when you design a compound block (as all of these blocks are) you might name the new block after its component blocks. I also flipped the two blue quarter-square triangles 180 degrees in the center, to make the block “spin.” It was a design choice. No, really. I meant to do that.