February Bee Block for Gridsters Bee: Pineapple!

IG: #gridsterbee

Pineapple Block for Sherri for February 2017

This month, Sherri, of A Quilting Life, is our Queen Bee and she’s asked us to make her pineapple blocks.

First step: make a mess of the sewing room pulling out greens to get the best ones.  (It also helps with re-organizing my messy shelves.)

I downloaded the free pattern, and also pulled up the post from Sherri where she makes her block, so I could glean any tips she had when she made it.

She suggested we scroll through Jackie’s IG feed until we found the tutorial, which really helped me understand how we put these together (that’s a screen shot of her image above), as the pattern is a bit sketchy on details. It can be a bit confusing, but basically she is making enough for 18 pineapple blocks. 

As promised, here’s a brief tutorial on how I like to make my #pineapplequilt blocks! The great part about these blocks is there is no wrong way to do them, and lots of right ways!
1️⃣ I like to pull yellows in sets of four so that I can strip piece my units to form the yellow body. You need 24 2-1/2″strips sewn into 6 groups of 4 to produce 18 pineapples. 2️⃣ After sewing my 6 strips of 4, I like to press them all one direction and then I subcut them at 2-1/2″. This helps to nest my seams when I construct the body of the pineapple. 3️⃣ I choose a variety of greens, along with my white background fabric, and subcut the number of 2-1/2″ blocks needed to make the corners and stem units. 4️⃣ Then, I draw a line corner to corner and I sew on the line on the white squares to create the white background pieces. (Kind of like making a snowball block) 5️⃣ Next, I trim 1/4″ from my seam and press my corners out. 6️⃣ To make your stem units you’ll want to make HST’s in whichever method you prefer to equal 2-1/2″ unfinished HST’s. 7️⃣ This quilt is great for using up scraps, and I generally have a lot of 2-1/2″ strips, so I make my HST’s from that size and sew corner to corner and then trim 1/4″ from my seam down the middle. There is more waste this way, but if it’s just scraps anyway, I’m ok with it! 8️⃣ Arrange your background squares and HST’s to form the stem shape, and sew those units to your pineapple body. 9️⃣ Ta-da! You’ve made a pineapple block!!! 🙌🏻🍍

Better to click on the Tutorial (above) and use that.

What confused me was that the pattern calls for cutting all the blocks the same size, different than what I would do if making half-square trianges (HST).  After reading the IG tutorial, I see that Jackie sort of “snowballs” on the white corners, instead of making HSTs.  She marks the line, and sews just to the side of it–to the seam allowance side.  She then cuts off the excess.  One advantage of this method: there are no dog ears to trim!

Yellows sewn: check.  Green pineapple crown sewn: check.

One other difference in the construction of this block is that the low-volume white is added to the corners of the yellow block after it’s all sewn together, then sliced off and pressed.

Ta-Done!

And here it is with its signature block–with yellow on one corner and green on the other–albeit a bit blurry.

Elaine’s Quilt Block Quilt Shop in Salt Lake City had a swap of pineapple blocks–both in the yellow and in a range of colors.  Unfortunately, they have now closed. I wish I’d grabbed more screen shots of all the pretty blocks!

Next month I am the Queen Bee–can’t wait!