Create Your Own One-Block Wonder
Posted by Debbie Rodgers on Dec 22nd 2017
One-Block Wonders of the World is Maxine Rosenthal’s fourth book showcasing her terrific single-fabric designs using 60° triangles. Her coauthor, Linda Bardes, suggested Maxine write another book and prepared a table of contents that set the book in motion. Their conversation took place just before C&T reached out to Maxine to ask, “Do you have any ideas for another book?”
Maxine and Linda explain the methods for cutting and sewing hexagons, plus some new ideas for borders, partial blocks, and using panels, so that you can create your custom quilt.
This book is chock-full of amazing quilts that follow the One-Block Wonder guidelines:
• Use a fabric with a consistent repeat.
• Consider larger prints. Larger prints will create a quilt that doesn’t look like the original fabric.
• Use a fabric with a multicolored background.
• Use a fabric with a limited number of colors.
• Avoid fabrics with straight lines that run along or across the selvage.
Linda notes that she doesn’t always follow the guidelines. In fact, she and Maxine highlight some quilts where ignoring the guidelines worked. Here’s Life, the Universe, and Everything by Bruce Seeds:
Photo by Bruce Seeds
The original fabric did not follow the guidelines on two counts—it had straight lines and lots of colors.
Photo by Bruce Seeds
One-Block Wonders of the World features an extensive array of quilts and provides lots of advice to help you on your adventure with One-Block Wonder quilts. I encourage you to take another look at the fabric in your stash or in the store the next time you are shopping for fabric to see what will work for your next One-Block Wonder quilt.
