Irish Chain Variation Block Tutorial

This tutorial is meant mainly for my Quilting Bee group, as this is the block for my month (July), so I am posting this primarily to simplify all the measurements for everyone. This will be the block we are making:

Supplies:
- Fat Quarter of white fabric with light green dots (will refer to as white)
- either a 10"x10" or 9x11 of light green fabric (will refer to as green)
- 3 10"x10" blocks of blue/brown/darker green fabric (they are mostly prints, so I will refer to them as prints)

Cutting Instructions:
White:
- 4 strips (2 inches wide, about 10" long)
- 16 2"x5" rectangles
Print:
- 5 strips (2 inches wide, about 10" long)
- 17 2"x2" squares
Green:
- 4 strips 8.5"x2"

I cut everything into 2" strips and then cut the smaller rectangles out of those.

Note: I iron my seams open, because I found that you get more precise measurements that way, but you can choose to do whatever works for you.

1. Sew the strips together for the 9-patch squares. (This is the strips you cut before, 5 print and 4 white.) You should end up with 2 Print-White-Print and 1 White-Print-White strips, each about 10" long and 5" wide

2. Cut the strip sets into small strips, 2" wide

3. Sew together into 9-patch Blocks so that there are 5 prints and 4 whites in each. Make sure your square is exactly 5"x5", if not you may want to either trim it a bit or make your seam narrower.

4. Sew white pieces onto the square on the right and left side of your 9-patch block

5. Make rectangles that will end up being 8-inches long, with a 5"x2" rectangle in the middle and 2"x2" print squares on either side.

6. Attach the 8" rectangles to the top and bottom of your 9-patch squares. I found that for matching them up, it really helps to pin the seams that are supposed to match up, and if one of the pieces is shorter, just kind of stretch it out....

7. Iron out your resulting squares, and make sure they are exactly 8"x8", trim if necessary. If it is a bit smaller, mark the 7.5" square inside and compensate when attaching the green "sashing"

8. Make 2 rows from blocks you just made of Block - Green sashing - Block, then trim the green strip

9. Make the middle "sashing, by putting a 2"x2" print block, between two green strips and attach it between the two rows you just made. Trim the ends.

And voila! You should now have a 17"x17" inch block!