Home Plate Workshop

 I was lucky enough to get to take a class last Saturday from Pam Rocco. She's a member of the South Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild and designed this template block which she calls Home Plate. Because one of the shapes looks just like the shape of a baseball base plate.  She brought many examples of completed quilts so we could see how versatile the block is when combined in different ways.

This first one I did the most simple version, only two fabrics, and in the 10" size. Pam included 10", 20" and 40" templates along with a well-written and illustrated pattern.

I had enough time to try a second one so I decided to go for another 10" block, but this time with three fabrics. But before I sewed it together in the same way as the first one I did, I played around with the block pieces.

 Pam was a great teacher, very well organized and prepared which is much appreciated. She has a great way of explaining things which was helpful since I'd never done a template block before. She made it easy and had a great attitude about students experimenting or changing things up.

 Here's the finished version all sewn together. I really like how it turned out.

One of the other class members was telling us about using an app to play with quilt blocks, it's the one that Instagram suggests when you want to make mosaic or collages of your photos, "Layout". This is such a great idea, and very easy to use.
Here's how the one block looks when done in a 3 x 3 layout. You can get an idea of secondary patterns that emerge really easily just by using one photo of a block.