This Down Home nine patch quilt block surprised me when it came time to design the quilts from this block. The colours that I chose to use give me the feel of a "southwest" sort of palette and I was delighted by the resultant quilts I designed with this block.

The quilt layout shown below on the left sets the blocks side by side. However, due to the colour placement of the patches, this block has a definite directional nature to the design. By rotating some of the blocks by 90 degrees, you can see subtle secondary designs appear, where none would be evident if this technique was not used.

The quilt layout featured on the right sets the blocks on point and separates them with sashing strips. The different coloured "cornerstones" in the sashing strips give understated pops of colour here and there where the blocks meet. The outer setting triangles in the bright colour give a "fiery" finish to this quilt.

~ More Directional Quilt Blocks