Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Blog Tour | X-Blox

Hey everyone! Thanks for stopping by P2 today to say "HI"!!

Charlie and I are so excited and honored to have a block in Volume 4 of the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine. We're both huge fans of the publication and love all the inspiration contained in each issue; not only for the mass of swaps we participate in every year, but for the wide range of fabrics and block styles represented. Yes, it's true, Quiltmaker's 100 is a great resource for quick and easy bee block patterns!

Even though we released this quilt block under our collaborative design business, I can't take too much credit. Charlie had this block idea floating around in his head and decided he'd like to submit it to Quiltmaker. So, other than good old fashioned moral support and a little email communication, this was all on Charlie's back...

...and here he is to tell you what I mean when I said It was all on his back. :)


Hey all! It's Charlie, and I want to tell you a little background story about this block:

Let’s rewind to a few months and think back to the Spring of this year. I had just gotten out of the hospital and was reading twitter when I saw that the deadline for Quiltmaker’s 100 blocks was that very day.

Ryan & I had talked about doing a block for them, but never really decided on anything. It’s sometimes hard when you live thousands of miles apart… So, I took the bull by the horns and put my nose to grind stone, and came up with a block. I had no idea what colors I should use or even if he would like it because our previous conversation about a block hadn’t gotten that far. Ryan was out saving the world that day (he’s a Funeral Director and takes his job VERY seriously) and I couldn’t reach him to find out his thoughts or ideas.

Left to my own devices, in the back of my mind, I could hear Ryan’s voice. That day it was kind of a nagging tone if I remember right, but then again it could have been the medications that I was on talking, nevertheless I was trying to think like Ryan. He had just finished P2’s first ever solid quilt-along (all on his own because someone ended up getting sick) and sent me fabrics so I could make blocks along with everyone else. I knew what I ultimately decided on would be safe fabrics and colors to use. I was just unsure of the block design because Ryan and I didn’t design it together like we normally do.

Off I went to the sewing machine and started to work on a block, all the time hoping and saying to myself, I hope he likes it. I finished up the block, filled out the paperwork and put it in the mail…

…but I still had to tell Ryan what I’d done.

I finally told myself to stop worrying about it I had nothing to lose. After all it’s only a 12” block going in a magazine that thousands of readers are going to see.

See, there was nothing to worry about. :)

When I finally was able to talk to Ryan that night and tell him what I had done (which I felt like a kid that had just done something wrong the whole time) he had 100 questions to ask me. You see, Ryan & I have our own roles that we play for P2 beyond the whole designing part. Most of the time they don’t cross over, but this time I had really crossed the line into his territory and I knew it. Ryan ALWAYS does the PR and blog and sets everything up with mags, etc. This time I left him out of the loop.

It all worked out for the best and I had nothing to worry about in the end. Ryan loved the block, Quiltmaker loved the block and wanted to publish it.

Well, there you have it. A little back story on our block from Charlie! You can see X-Blox on page 64. As you can see from the photo above, our block uses Kona Solids from Robert Kaufman. To give you an idea of what our block would look like in a patterned fabric we've created this digital image below.

The quilt here featuring X-Blox uses an upcoming line from Moda Fabrics called A Stitch in Color by Malka Dubrawsky.


And here's another using an upcoming line called Hello Luscious by BasicGrey for Moda.


To celebrate the release of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 4, we'd like to give away a copy of the magazine to one lucky reader. Please leave a comment on this post to enter.

To learn more about who represents P2, feel free to visit Ryan and Charlie over on their personal blogs here:

Charlie Scott - Qubee Quilts
Ryan Walsh - Ryan Walsh Quilts