Passing the Days

As I was in my studio this morning, day 2 of my self-imposed quarantine, a thought came to me about how to mark these days.  What if I  each day I made a new quilt block to represent this most unusual time in our lives and when life gets back to normal put them all together into a quilt of remembrance?  And so I came up with "Passing the Days." 

My blocks will finish at 6" square, so 6.5" x 6.5" unfinished.   Don't be afraid of the small size these are great for improving your piecing skills.  One of my tips for working with smaller blocks...starch.  You will be amazed at what a difference starching your fabrics before you cut them can make.  (I only starch what I will be using as it is not good to store fabrics that have been starched, it attracts bugs.)

So let me introduce my first block: Hourglass 1

Hourglass 1 seemed like a good block to start with as we are all dealing with hours to fill in new ways.

For this block you will need:
Dark fabric: (cut 4) 2 1/2" x 2 1/2"
Medium fabric: (cut 2) 2 1/2" x 2 1/2"
                              (cut 1) 3" x 3"
Light fabric: (cut 1) 3" x 3"
                        (cut 1) 2 1/2" x 2 1/2"
For my block I started with yellow for my medium fabric.  As I thought about this block and what I wanted to say with it I noticed on our neighborhood walk this afternoon that daffodils were starting to appear.  Yellow. I wll start with yellow.

I am going to be playing with my color wheel a lot on these blocks.  When I look acrosss from yellow I have violet, so I did some searching in my stash for a violet.  This is going to represent that dreaded Corona Virus or Covid 19.  It is my dark fabric in this block.
For my light fabric I chose a white-on-white with snowflakes on it because it snowed last night and we woke up to a beautifully snow-covered world.  In the midst of chaos there is peace.

To make the block I began by drawing a diagonal line on the back of the light 3" square to make the Half-square Triangles that will go in the corners. I place it right sides together on top of the medium 3" square and sew 1/4" from each side of my drawn line

Cut apart on the drawn line and press towards the medium fabric.

I made these a little large so need to trim them to 2 1/2" x 2 1/2".

Now I arrange all of my squares into a nine-patch layout.

Sew together into rows pressing towards the dark fabric each time as shown by arrows.

Join the rows together, matching seams and press towards the middle row.

The back of my block showing how I pressed it.

As I thought about what this block represents on Day 1, as I said the purple represents the virus that has seemingly so taken over our lives.  And yet if we take time to look we can see there is life just waiting to spring forth, it may still be faint; not commanding as much attention, but it is there if we look for it just like those daffodils that are starting to bloom.

May you find a blessing in this day.
Happy Quilting!