Tutorial--Four Patch Shuffle

I have seen this block on several blogs; 

but I really don't know what it is called.

I first played around with it a few months ago

when neither sewing machine was working.

I took some colored paper, taped them together,

and started slicing to see what kind of neat,

yet easy, blocks that I could come up with.

This block works perfectly with a layer cake. 

Any size squares will work though.

Just place one contrasting square of fabric on top of another right sides together.

Sew with a 1/4" seam allowance down the right and left sides of the squares.

And then cut into four equal quadrants. (One cut down the middle each direction.)

Sew these sections into two matching four patch blocks.

Making sure all the blocks are squared up first,

Cut them 1 1/2" from the middle lines--in all directions.

Your first slices should look like this:

Then, you need to cut like this:

Next you shuffle the four middle blocks of each section. 

Just trade them across the row.

And sew together!

Try this block using different color combo's.

Here is a two color combo:

You could use one layer cake,

and divide the colors into lights and darks.

This would make a nice lap size quilt.

Or two layer cakes for a larger quilt.

 One colorful and one solid.

Another twist on the block would be to make the 1 1/2" slices

from diagonal to diagonal. I tried this with paper.

It was very cool. 

You will have to deal with bias...

just use lots of starch!!

I would love to hear from you if you decide to make this block;

let me know and I'll post it on my blog.