2024 Block of the Week – Block 7

Oh my! Here we are already at block 7! This BOW sew along has gone so fast. I hope you are enjoying them. If you are just joining us, here’s a link to last week’s block 6 post. From there you can get links to the previous posts as you work your way through.

If you are new to the BOW, we are piecing blocks that I have chosen that reflect my love for traditional quilt blocks. Some of these blocks date all the way back to the 19th century! I try to give you a bit of history on the block itself and share some tips to help you stitch it up. So let’s get started.

Block of the Week

Block 7:

The name of this block is Paradox. Kind of an interesting “twisty” design to this one. You can find the instructions for this block here: 2024 BOW Block 7.

A little block history. This is a distinct style of block that has its origins in the Amish community in the late 19th century. Amish women were very creative and innovative in designing a new style of block that was not seen in other quilter’s work. Traditional blocks from this time were a bit more basic whereas the Paradox block has a really intricate design, even though they used the same geometric pieces like half-square and quarter-square triangles and squares.

There is an exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) called Pattern and Paradox: The Quilts of Amish Women that contains about 50 quilts from about 1880 to 1950. There is also a book by Janneken Smucker, a historian and scholar of Amish quilts and culture. Sounds like a really interesting book! The SAAM actually has the largest collection of Amish quilts than any other museum. Find more information from the Smithsonian here.

Tips of the Week – Choosing color prints.

This block has 4 different color prints so I thought I would go over some of my tips for choosing a group of color prints when you are planning a quilt or even just a block.

Color Theory  – Just a Bit!

Color: Before you shop for fabric, dig out this little contraption and let’s have a lesson:

You probably recognize the color wheel from grade school art class. We learned about the primary colors of red, yellow and blue. From those colors, all the other colors are created. That’s why they’re called “primary” colors.  

The first group of colors created by combining primary colors are called secondary colors. These are orange (from red and yellow), green (from blue and yellow) and violet (from blue and red).

The color wheel can help you with getting the right contrast in your quilt in addition to picking out fabric colors. Notice the closer that colors to each other are on the wheel, the less contrast between them. The most contrast is achieved with colors that are farther away from each other. This is where complimentary colors come in. A color that is opposite of another on the wheel provides the most contrast and is called complimentary. For example: red and green are across from each other so they are considered complimentary and there is high contrast between them.

Shade, Tone & Tint: Knowing the difference between shade, tone and tint and how that effects the contrast between your fabrics can go a long way in helping you choose fabrics.

• Shade is taking the pure color, for instance blue, and adding black to it to make it darker, for a dark blue.
• Tint is taking the pure blue and adding white to make it lighter, making a light blue.
• Tone is adding grey to a pure color to make it less intense. Most colors around us in the world are tones of pure color.

Another way contrast can be achieved is by combining “warm” and “cool” colors or have blocks that alternate between warm and cool colors throughout a quilt.

Summing it up… if you want a quiet, muted quilt, choose colors close to each other on the wheel, with the same shades, tints or tones. If you want a high contrast quilt, choose colors far away from each other on the wheel, with different shades, tints or tones. Of course there are a lot of complete books on color theory and this is just a tiny snippet of information. If you are interested in a more in depth explanation, you can surely find some of these books at the library or online.

Using Color Theory in Choosing Fabrics

So here’s a real world example of some of what I talked about above.

One way contrast is achieved is by considering the shades and tints of the each color you choose. Tint is when white is added to a color to make it lighter and shade is when black is added to a color to make it darker. For example,

pink is a tint of red where maroon is a shade of red.

See the difference in these fabrics? They’re all the same base color, red, but when used in a quilt, they will each make it look a bit different.

Here’s another example. Pick out fabrics you would like to use in your quilt and stack them up like these fat quarters I used below:

There is not much contrast between these fabric because they are all close to the same shade within their color family. But now, in the photo below, I have switched out two of the fabrics for fabrics tinted lighter than the originals.

The above are all cool colors as well and close to each other on the color wheel. Look what happens when I add in some complimentary colors from the warm side:

Removing the brown and purple fabrics and adding the gold and red fabrics makes the stack of fabrics more vibrant.

So keep these tips in mind when choosing fabrics for this block. Do you want a certain portion of it to “jump out” more. That’s the trick for color. You can pick out an element of the block and use color to emphasize it if you want. Or…. you can play and make it scrappy!

I added a touch of black again in this block to emphasize a shoofly design in the center. 

Well, that’s it for this week! Make sure to leave a comment or ask a question below and be entered into the drawing for the fat quarter pack:

The drawing will be the week after this sew along ends. Good luck and see you next week!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne