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Friday, February 17, 2012

Calico Grove Tutorial


I drafted a pattern to piece this block called Calico Grove. I like the block design but I think that the name drew me in at first. This block is illustrated on page 180 of 5,500 Quilt Block Designs by Maggie Malone. The block was first printed in Quiltmaker in 1992. I am sure that it would be possible to piece this block without foundation piecing but that is what I chose in order to keep my straight lines nice and even. If you'd like to try this block, I am sharing my templates with you. Just click here to download the pdf pattern pieces and here for the title page. I broke it into two pieces because the pattern pieces are landscape and the title page is not.



The blocks are reasonably time consuming. I have just made two. I was contemplating a quilt but might stop at two pillows. I'm not really sure. These aren't my usual colors but I was inspired by the colors of Basic Grey's new Plumeria paper collection and decided to go for it. They are springy and I need a little spring at the moment.
I used several shades of celery and lavender, grey and orange. The original block design was not scrappy but I decided to go that way. All the fabrics seen here can be found in my lovely sponsors' shops (see sidebar) except for the two polka dot prints which are DS Quilts from JoAnns.

19 comments:

  1. What a nice block and your color choices are great! We have the grey DS dots, but not the orange (insert sad face here, because you KNOW how much I love my orange...)

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  2. That is a neat block! How about making 4 and making a mini for the wall? I'd love to see the secondary patter with 4 of them! (If you don't know what to do with it, I'm pretty sure it would look good in my house :-) )

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  3. That is really pretty and I love all the color combo's.
    It looks very Spring!

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  4. Wow Amy, these are some fun blocks! How long does it take you to make one? And what is your plan? A big quilt? I would love to see lots of these together!!

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  5. Oh wow, these are fab, thanks for the pattern!

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  6. Very cool! I would love to see an entire quilt made of these!!

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  7. fabulous! and thanks for the pattern too xx

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  8. Saved it! You are so good to share. Thanks.

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  9. love it but it does look like it takes a while to do. but i think i will save it for when i get better at this

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  10. Oh Amy, quilt and pillows pretty please! The colors are amazing and such a unique block design. I hope you keep going with the quilt, but pillows are a lovely opt out.

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  11. I like your blocks and the block design, too. I think the fabric choices are great. It looks like you could get a nice secondary design going when you put the blocks together. Nice!

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  12. Amy this block is amazing. I just love the colors in your block.

    I wanted to ask a question about the templates. When I open the pdf the first page looks good but all the pages with the templates show they will be too large for the 8 1/2 x 11 paper and only about 2/3 of each page will print. Do we need to tile the pages and then tape the templates together or is there a problem with the download? I don't see any size box or line to measure to be sure I'm printing the right size so I wanted to ask. Thank you. I did have the printer set to no scaling or anything else and at 100% also in case you wondered.

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  13. Gorgeous block, Amy. I love the springy fabric combo.

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  14. i was a little surprised by the color combo you chose, but it does look lovely :)

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  15. Great so creative block! I love the colors! Thanks for the pattern! Such generosity! God bless you.

    Libyan Quilterina@facebook

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