SBS - Glorified Nine Patch

The block I chose to do this week is Glorified Nine Patch. I really love this block. I hope to do a whole quilt in this block one day. If I do, the blocks will be larger than 6" though. There were two different methods for assembling this block. One was to use templates and do curved piecing. The other was to assemble an uneven nine patch and applique the long curved pieces. Can you guess which method I chose? I really like how it came out. If I were to do a whole quilt I think I'd go with the templates though.

SBS BOW - Fool's Puzzle

The block I chose to do this week, Fool's Puzzle, is a Drunkard's Path variation. I generally don't mind sewing curves, when they're large, gentle curves. But, these units finish at 1-1/2 inches and I didn't relish doing 16 of them. So, I decided that I'd try a technique I once saw in a book. I appliqued circles to squares, and cut them into quarters. 

This isn't the final arrangement. I forgot to take that picture, but it looks great, right? Well, look what happened when those units were sewn together.

Not so great. This technique might work for larger circles and squares, but at this size it's very noticeable that the arcs are kind of flat and the circle shape is lost. So I thought. And thought. And thought some more and just before falling asleep a couple of nights ago it came to me. Remarkably I still remembered my "bright idea" the next morning AND it seemed to make sense. I made a template and appliqued the shapes to the squares and cut them into quarters. 

They look a little wonky, don't they? But, here's what they look like sewn together:

I'd say this is a definite improvement. 

(Sorry about the different lighting in the pictures. The completed blocks were scanned whereas the intermediary steps were done with the camera.)