My first Trip Around the World Block

Over the snowy ‘Winter Wonderland’ weekend I persevered with the task of hunting through my stash (defined as any piece of fabric larger than a fat quarter) and my colour-sorted scraps (any pieces smaller than a fat quarter!) in search of fabrics to use for Gnome Angel’s #scrappytripalong2019.

I now have a collection of 144 strips, 16″ x 2½” ready to piece into 24 scrappy Trip Around the World blocks. Well! That’s not quite true… I have already made one block, so only 138 strips left! 😀 Having cut out all those strips I was keen to test the strip piecing method in the Bonnie Hunter tutorial Angie advised we use.

Here are some photos to show how I made my first block. I enjoyed the tube method of strip piecing, making these blocks will be good practice for the Bargello quilt I hope to make one day! 😉

Six scrappy strips stitched by Allison Reid — Six strips stitched together

Cutting the scrappy strip set tube by Allison Reid — Stitch the top and bottom strips together to make a tube. Then cut strips across the tube.

Opening out the strip set by Allison Reid — Unpick a different seam in each of the cut strips.

If I make one of these blocks most days for the next four weeks I will keep on schedule with the ‘trip along’.

Linking with Judy for Design Wall Monday.

Allison

9 thoughts on “My first Trip Around the World Block”

Laura

February 4, 2019 at 10:09 pm

That’s a clever way to make the block! 🙂
- Allison Reid
  
  February 5, 2019 at 9:23 am
  
  Yeah! I think it’s a lot quicker than stitching together individual squares and more accurate too. Not all my seams match perfectly but over all the block is square and the right size which is a bit of a challenge with so many seams!
My Sewful Retirement

February 5, 2019 at 1:04 pm

I really like this method! I’m adding this to my “to do” list 🙂
- Allison Reid
  
  February 5, 2019 at 10:47 pm
  
  I’m glad you’ve been inspired! I’m enjoying making these blocks. I wouldn’t enjoy stitching together hundreds of individual 2.5″squares nearly so much!
  - My Sewful Retirement
    
    February 6, 2019 at 2:03 pm
    
    I agree!
Then and Again Quilts

February 5, 2019 at 2:23 pm

I’ve seen this done before, but I haven’t yet tried it myself yet. Your tutorial was great thanks.
- Allison Reid
  
  February 5, 2019 at 10:44 pm
  
  Thank you!It is an effective method I think. I made a second block today – it took me 35 minutes. I’m not the speediest at patchwork piecing!
Melissa

February 6, 2019 at 6:29 pm

I love that block!! I did a swap for it so I have A LOT of variety in mine, now to get it finished!
- Allison Reid
  
  February 8, 2019 at 10:21 am
  
  Using it as a swap block would create wonderful scrap quilts. I’m on my sixth block now and so far haven’t repeated any of the fabrics. I will soon have to have some repeats but with so many fabrics hopefully they won’t dominate or stand out too much.