Jen’s Juicy July Block

Fellow Quilters,

Today is another busy day here at Patti’s Patchwork – it is Canada’s 154th birthday, a day to celebrate our heritage and the diverse cultures that make up the Canadian fabric.  As a nation, we are like a patchwork quilt, with no two patches the same.  Many years ago I had the good fortune to see Canadian quilter Esther Bryan’s incredible Quilt of Belonging.

Esther Bryan’s stunning Quilt of Belonging

This 120ft masterpiece of fibre art includes 263 unique blocks stitched by and representing every culture that calls Canada “home”, including our many First Nations cultures as well as our immigrants that have arrived in Canada over the past 300 years.  It is a quilt of inclusivity – without any one block, the quilt is incomplete.  As such, it perfectly represents our beautiful country.

Today is also the launch of the July edition of Jen Shaffer’s 2021 Monthly Color Challenge. If you’re hopping over from another participating blogger, a warm welcome to you!  Feel free to browse through earlier posts and hit that Subscribe button on the right.  You can also subscribe to my newsletter at www.pattispatchwork.com for insider info on new patterns and subscriber-only specials – the link is at the bottom of the website main page.

So, fellow pattern designer Jen over at Patterns by Jen has been hosting a Monthly Color Challenge for a while now, and I joined in last month.  This year’s challenge is based on fruit and vegetable colors and includes a free block each month – hop on over to Patterns by Jen to download the pattern and even watch the video on how to create the monthly block.  Each block pattern is free for that month, after which it can be downloaded from Jen’s site for a very small fee.

July’s lime-colored block

July’s block is lime-colored, inside and out, and it’s even somewhat “round-ish”.  Jen’s pattern includes instructions for a 12” option as well as a 6” option – think “regular limes” and “key limes”.  I put the block into my Electric Quilt EQ8 designing program, downloaded some tangy citrus colors from Mixmaster’s Mashup by Patrick Lose for Northcott, and started playing.

I popped the block into my layouts from last month.  The first iteration has off-set vertical rows – I used 12” blocks, switching up the colors of the blocks.  Then I put 12” blocks and 6” reverse-color blocks in an on-point layout.

Next I put large and small blocks in a straight layout.  So many options!

But wait!  There’s more!  I continued playing, this time combining same-color large and small blocks in an on-point setting, but this time I made the background of the small blocks the darker value. This one is my favorite, and so easy to create with the click of a mouse in EQ8.  What about you?  Which one of the 6 quilts do you prefer?

Hop on over to the other blogger’s sites to see what they’ve done with this month’s block and to get their tasty lime recipes:

Jen at Patterns by Jen

Kate at Katie Mae Quilts

Brenda at Songbird Designs

Lisa at Love to Color my World

Raylee at Sunflower Stitcheries

Andi at True Blue Quilts

Crystal at Daybrook Designs

Anne at Said With Love

Ashli at Quilt2endALZ

And pop over to Patterns by Jen for your chance at one or more of these awesome prizes being offered this quarter – simply make a block and post a pic in the link-up by the end of the month to be eligible for these prizes:

Did someone say recipe?!?  We are in the heat of summer in my neck of the woods, and I can’t think of anything better than outdoor cooking on the BBQ (no air conditioning at our house), especially since Hubby does the outdoor cooking.  I found the perfect lime-infused recipe for Honey, Ginger, Lime and Rum-glazed Shrimp over at SpruceEats.com.

Honey, Ginger, Lime and Rum-glazed Shrimp

Mmmm…. Looks like shrimp are on the menu this week!  Enjoy 🙂

Cheers,

Patti