Thursday, August 13, 2020

Democratic Donkey Quilt Block




Apparently it was four years ago that I saw a copy of the 1931 layout for this block and thought it would be nice to have a version that didn't have all the unnecessary piecing in the larger sections. Amazingly I finally got around to it. This isn't a full quilt pattern, it's just the cutting list I used for one block that I definitely don't want to figure out a second time and so I'm leaving it here. I think about six blocks would make a nicely sized quilt as they are quite large. I didn't try to cut the body pieces from a fat quarter but I think it could maybe be done if done very carefully.

The finished size when using an unfinished 2.5" square as the base unit is 26" tall by 29.5" wide.

Saddle/blanket center: 
cut 1 square 4.5"

Black accent pieces:
cut 2 rectangles 2.5" by 4.5"

Body:
cut 5 squares 2.5"
cut 1 square 4.5"
cut 1 rectangle 4.5" by 12.5"
cut 2 rectangles 4.5" by 6.5"
cut 1 rectangle 2.5" by 8.5"
cut one rectangle 2.5" by 6.5"
cut one rectangle 2.5" by 4.5"

Background:
cut 3 squares 2.5"
cut 1 rectangle 12.5" by 8.5"
cut 1 rectangle 18.5" by 10.5"
cut 1 rectangle 8.5" by 6.5"
cut 1 rectangle 8.5" by 4.5"
cut 1 rectangle 8.5" by 2.5
cut 1 rectangle 6.5" by 4.5"
cut 1 rectangle 6.5" by 2.5"
cut 3 rectangles 4.5" by 2.5

Half square triangles:
make 13  half black/half body fabric
make 1 half black/half white for the eye
make 5 half black/half background fabric
make 15 half body/half background

This fantastic drawing shows faintly in red where I put my seams to avoid partials and where I placed the larger blocks within each section. (To be extra confusing the numbers listed correspond to how many 2.5" squares make up each section not the measurements of that section. It's probably best to ignore them and just place the background pieces where they fit, they're different enough in size that its very easy to figure out.)

This is a reproduction of an earlier (possibly original?) version of the block. That version has about 229 pieces, mine has more like 96.

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