Before I was measuring stuff, I was a tool engineer, designing tooling to help make airplanes. The tools we use are big jigs to hold pieces while they’re fastened together, or mandrels to lay composite up on before it’s cured, or templates for drilling holes.

This block is inspired by some of the tooling that is used to make a blade stringer. In my block, the red is the stringer, and the yellow is the layup tool. I choose to use 2 different red fabrics and 2 different yellow fabrics, to help add some dimension.

Materials:

(1) 16” x 16” (ish) piece of batting

(1) 16” x 16” (ish) backing fabric

From Color A1 (red in my block), cut one of each:

Piece G – 1.5” x 4.5”

Piece D – 1.5” x 9.5”

From Color A2 (red in my block), cut one:

Piece B – 7.75” x 9.5”

From Color B1 (yellow in my block), cut TWO:

Pieces A & C – 3.75” x 8.75”

From Color B2 (yellow in my block), cut TWO:

Pieces E & F – 7.75” x 7.75”

From background fabric, cut one:

Piece H – 1.5” x 3.75”

Arrange the pieces onto your table to help facilitate sewing.

Sewing:

Sew piece H onto the bottom of piece G, and press.

Sew piece E onto the left side of the GH block, and piece F onto the right side of GH. Press.

Sew piece D onto the bottom of piece B, and press.

Sew piece A onto the left side of the BD block, and piece C onto the right side of BD. Press.

Sew piece E-GH-F onto the bottom of A-BD-C. Press. Use a lot of steam. Steam is awesome.

I think it took me longer to cut out the pieces than to sew them together. You probably know the drill by now: sandwich the backing, batting and top together and baste. Quilt!

That’s half of our blocks done! Next month we’ll talk about a really fun airplane manufacturing process: wing to body join! Let me know if you have any questions, and use the hasthtags #SeaMQGBOM2018 and #ASaMQuilt to show off your progress.