I want to warn you this post is picture intense! I was out cruising the web looking at You Tube videos for some new quilting ideas and found one demonstrating an idea they called the 10-minute block. The premise looked quick and do-able. I want to make a 48" by 72" quilt. I decided that an 8" finished block would be the best choice for giving me the exact size I wanted. This size of block means you are dealing with 4 1/2" size pieces. I think the last seam is a bit fiddly and possibly because of this, it took me longer than 10 minutes to make one of these blocks. First, I went through my fabric stash finding 44 different light colored fabrics and cut a 4 1/2" square of each one. Next I cut 8, 4 1/2" squares of the background fabric I wanted to use and made two blocks Well, looking at those two blocks setting beside each other didn't do much for me, so I pulled out another piece of fabric and made two more blocks. Better, but it still didn't do much for me, so I called it a day and went to bed. The next morning I woke up with a stroke of brilliance and decided to recombine the two background fabrics like this. Much better! By the way that center square of fabric is a green print. The camera washed out the colors! So to record the process for posterity and to offer some of my thoughts on the process let me show you some photos. Here are my three piles of fabrics. If I make this block again I will use larger squares of fabric such as the 10" squares they used in the video. Also, if I use all the same size squares I will probably use 5 different fabrics for each square of the block. The 8" finished block I made would make a nice 3D bow-tie block. I, also, though the center square was out of balance if you were going to use all the same fabric for the background. I haven't experimented, but I think a 5 1/2" to 6 1/2" center square would give you a 4" finished center square. A 4 /12" center square ends up being 2 7/8" finished square. Fold your center square in half. I found that the grain line mattered on this square. Fold it so the grain lines are together. (The non-stretch sides are opposite the fold.) Place right sides together. Lay the top piece of the fabric sandwich on right sides together. Pin the seam line and sew a scant 1/4" seam allowance catching the folded edge of the center square. Fold the two sides back like this. Because I wanted the backing fabrics to alternate, I laid the third piece of the block down to match the piece showing. Lay the last square on right side down, pin the seam line and sew a scant 1/4" seam allowance. When you finish sewing this last seam and open the block up it should look like this. Now open it up and match up center seam lines, pin. The video shows the seam lines as pressed open which would reduce the bulk of crossing seam lines. I didn't, I just nested them running opposite directions. I want to make a point here. See how close I pinned the center block to its edge? I found two things, one is to pin the right-side first and the second was to be sure to pin as close to the edge as possible. Because if you don't the right end of the center block pulls down away from the outside edge of the seam allowance when you are sewing on this small of a block. Also, don't remove that pin until you are right up to the pin or the center block will shift down. Now pin like hell the rest of the seam line! See how that seam line is puckered! I discovered that if I kept what I was feeding into the sewing machine flat I ended up with fewer problems. Once you get to the centerline it was easier to then work the pucker out and finish the seam. Unfold and iron your seam allowances flat. Next up is to play with the arrangement of the blocks! I'll let you know how that goes! Have a good day! Judy Edit: 5/31/17 I have finished this quilt. Go here to see the finished quilt.

Batik 10 Minute Block Quilt finished - a quick and easy quilt block to make a quick and easy quilt with different options.

I thought I was almost finished with the quilt and was ready to sew on the last border. I laid it on the bed and decided I would like it twice as big. The left black border will have to be taken off. I have plenty of black and whites...so I back to cutting again. It does go very fast. The back is going to be black, white and red.

Have you seen the 10 Minute Quilt Block? (Find the tutorial at this link.) I had never heard of it until Thursday evening when I went to my quilt group and a friend demonstrated how it is made. So simple! Then another member of my group shared that she had just finished a quilt top made out of these blocks. When I saw her quilt, I was hooked! Perfect for the scrappy quilter! Here is my first try at the block: Inspired by my friend's quilt which is completely made out of dot fabrics and is so adorable! I'm going to have fun with the dots in my stash, and maybe even collecting a few more wherever I can find them. Due to work and family obligations the last couple of weeks, I haven't done a lot of sewing. I did put my hourglass mini together and started quilting it. Love how it is turning out. Reminds me of tulips coming up in the spring! And, speaking of spring, I think it has arrived in Colorado! Hooray! Linking up at Oh Scrap! today and looking forward to more scrappy inspiration!

This pretty quilt belongs to Dawn. It is the Ten Minute Block and you can watch a tutorial here if you are interested in making one of your own. Dawn used 5" squares. Dawn told me that the recipient of this quilt was a really girly girl and left the rest up to me. I tend not to think of filling a quilt with feathers, but this one was asking me to. I decided to repeat the to open diamond shape where the four squares meet and add feathers around that. One of the joys of being a longarmer is watching the quilt begin to transform before your eyes. I always like to step back and make sure I am happy with my design choices before getting too far along. I had a good feeling at this point! I used Quilter's Dream Puff batting and a medium blue So Fine! thread. I did add one line of stitching in the 3d diamonds so they didn't stand up too much.

This is Lori's Ten Minute Block quilt and she asked for a simple free hand water design and just an echo in the brown curved diamond shapes. This is a really fast quilt to make and I have included a link to the YouTube video with instructions. Lori hand dyed the backing but it was a tone on tone print that didn't really match the design on the front. So she said to use the solid back side instead. When I went to quilt it I had to double check with her that she wanted me to use the back of the backing for the back..... :) I felt like I was loading it wrong on the machine which was the right way this time. The quilt retreat was great and I am glad I have Sunday to recover..I didn't get home until 11pm last night :) So this is what I accomplished I finished sewing the curves down on my Mexican Star. Almost finished one of my boys twin size quilts but still need to decide on the borders. And I also got a start on my Hopscotch quilt. Still along way to go on that one. Humm...I don't think I can just leave this at that stage. I think I know what I'll be sewing tonight.

Hi Everyone Have you tried the 10 minute quilt block from Suzanne McNeil. Oh my goodness what fun and so easy too. This block is ...

Peggy and her co-workers made this beautiful quilt using a 10-minute block pattern. It sure looks like it took them more than 10 minutes per...

The best kept secret in quilting gifts is Suzanne McNeill's 10 Minute Quilt Blocks. I made 3 different versions of this quilt for Christmas this year. Ms. McNeil put together a very good tutorial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbTHlGGKMPM&feature=youtube_gdata_player I tweaked her patterns a little bit for my quilts. The first one that I did was a king sized quilt for my brother and sister-in-law (I heart you, Dave and Chy!). I used the Birchtree Lane Collection from Connecting Threads for this project. I ordered 5 layer cakes from them (knowing that there were 19 squares per layer cake). I then ordered 11 yards of one of the prints for the middle squares, border, and back. I also got two yards of a dark brown fabric for the binding . The first step to this quilt was to divide my layer cakes into like color groupings of 4. I picked blue, green, latte, and dark brown as my groupings. I cut 3 yards sections for the back and then cut 6.5 inch strips from one of the 3 yard sections longwise for the border. The last yard I used to make 20 10in squares for the middle of each grouping. I really like the look of having matching middles and borders to all of my squares. I make this quilt 4 blocks by 5 blocks making the final measurement for this quilt 107" x 88". Since this was a king sized quilt, I sent it off to be machine quilted by a friend, since there is no way my machine could accommodate it's size. The best thing about these quilt blocks is that they make really cool seasonal quilts. I made a Christmas quilt out of fat quarters. Christmas Throw I bought 2 sets of 5 coordinating fat quarters from Joann's. Because I couldn't cut 10 inch squares from the fat quarters, I cut 9 inch squares instead. I cut 4 squares from each quarter and then cut a 3 inch strips from the remaining part of the quarter for the border. I bought a yard of fabric for a 6.5 inch border 3 yards of fabric for the back. After much consideration and laying out different combinations I decided to put them together in 2 different blocks and again use the same color on each of the middle diamonds. In laying out the quilt it is very important to check and see that the patters on the fabric is laid out in different directions, especially with dramatic stripes. The greatest part about this throw was that I spent under $20 to buy the fabric and I used leftover batting from another project. I put the entire quilt together, including the binding in one weekend. For binding on this quilt, I used the leftover 3 inch strips and sewed them together in a patchwork pattern, making sure that each of my angles went in a different direction. For the quilting, I decided that this quilt was small enough to sew on my machine. I used clear thread on the top and green thread on the bottom and sewed diagonally thorough all of my squares making a fun pattern on the back! Cheers! Jaime