Fireworks in July

I see fireworks when I look at this block and since July and summer is a time of fireworks in many countries, the time seems right for this block. You may see asterisks or spiders, spider mums or snowflakes, depending on the fabrics and colors involved. Whatever YOU choose to call it, we're making the liberated version of it for our July Lotto Block . . . in fabrics that may represent fireworks in a night sky.

BLOCK PATTERN INFO

For instructions for making this block, download Asterisks from Tonya Ricucci's tutorial page on her UnRuly Quilter website.

We are making larger blocks than Tonya's: 8-1/2 inches square to finish at 8 inches in the winners' quilts.  I suggest beginning with a 10 square of background fabric to give you some wiggle room to trim and square up; and cutting the strips 1-to-2 inches wide. If your block comes out a little too small, don't fret, just trim it to 7-1/2 inches or less (in one or both directions) and add a strip of background fabric to bring it up to size.

As usual, you may make up to a maximum of NINE BLOCKS this month.

FABRIC CHOICES

For this month, please use:

• Black or very dark colored background.  It may be a black-on-black (BOB) or a dark tone-on-tone (TOT) print or a solid.
• Bright fabrics (solids or prints) for the inserted strips. These can be multicolor prints.  I think stripes, like those in Julie's block above and some other great examples from the sneak peekers below, work really well in this block. 

If you are making multiple blocks to enter, you may use the same background fabric for all your blocks, but must use a unique bright fabric for each one.

CONSTRUCTION NOTES

The method for this block is nearly identical to the Tic-Tac-Toe blocks we made in January  . . .  only the orientation of the cuts/insertions is different.

June took these in-progress photos of her blocks: The top photo shows the blocks after two strips have been inserted.  The middle photo was taken after the third strip is inserted.  The bottom photo shows the completed blocks, with 4 inserted strips, before trimming.  NOTE: You might notice that a true typographic asterisk is made from only three intersecting lines . . . ***  . . . but these "asterisk" blocks have FOUR.  June's second photo of her blocks in progress actually looks more like a set of true asterisk blocks.  It's for that reason that although Tonya and Karen Griska refer to this block as "asterisk," going forward, I will refer to it as FIREWORKS.   I also mentioned SPIDER as a way of seeing this block . . . and a reminder that these blocks, like spiders, should have EIGHT LEGS.  I think they would make great spiders on a liberated Halloween or bug quilt.

LABELS FOR JULY BLOG POSTS

Please add the label "fireworks" to any blog posts on this blog about this block. If your blog post contains the photos of your blocks, please also add the label "July 10 photos" ... that will make it easy to link to all the block photos and to find all the discussions related to this block.

EXAMPLE BLOCKS - THE VIRTUAL QUILT

Here's a virtual quilt made from 55 of the block photos from some of the block photos I received from some of the sneak peekers–Flickr is going through an upgrade and I was having problems uploading photos, so this virtual quilt is smaller than it could have been.

See all 77 blocks made so far by everyone in the next blog post.

For more eye candy and inspiration, be sure to check out Karen Griska's "Asterisk" quilt along on the Selvage Blog. Her blocks aren't liberated, but the fabric choices in her examples are fabulous.