Week 24: Maple Leaf Blooms pattern

Here's a fun and simple block that can be made into a pillow, mini or larger quilt. It's inspired by the traditional maple leaf block, with four leaves surrounding a focal fabric in the middle. I call the block #mapleleafblooms because it reminds me of flowers.

Here are the cutting directions I jotted down for myself:

The squares cut for the HST give you a little wiggle room for trimming. I know trimming HST can be a little tedious, but I find the result is more accurate than those made just to size. This pattern makes an 18.5" unfinished block. For the pillows I made, I added a 1.5" border.

Below are a few pillows I made recently with this pattern:

It's a great pattern to showcase a few favourite prints. And the middle square is large enough to show off a larger print. Or you could make the block smaller and make a pillow of four. The math is very easy. When I made HST I simply add 1" to the finished block size to figure out what size to cut to make them.

If you do make this block, I'd love it if you share the result on Instagram using the hashtag #mapleleafblooms and tag me @johannaweidner.