FROM A NINE PATCH TO A.....

I recently shared a Disappearing Nine Patch block with some of my quilting friends that I had seen at sew-fantastic   We are going to be making a quilt of valour and thought about this technique for our pattern.  We met last week to start on our quilt (Be looking for future posts on our process).
 

 Kay had made a simple nine patch square (imagine you can't see the cuts she made)

and had cut it vertically and horizonally in the 
middle. The large darker red in the center will become small squares and the medium red squares will be the same size or two together to form a rectangle.





We played around with the four pieces a little, but Rita, another member of the group, had bought the recent copy of Fons and Porter quilting magazine as it had a feature article on quilts of valour and we decided we would make one of them. 

The next day several of us were together again and I suggested that we see how many different ways we could rearrange the four pieces to make a quilt square.  Here are some pictures of what we came up with, our Disappearing Nine Patch Blocks.  The thing is you can see some cute possibilities for some quilt squares.

This is one of my favorite designs.  It is also one of the easiest as you only have the one intersecting seam in the center to make sure you meet.

I also really like the looks of this one.
 

These next two examples would be interesting if you made the original nine-patch with the four corners different prints that were close to the same color.  This one to the right is two halves of the next picture.  Thus when you add another block on either side, you will create the look of the block in the next picture.

  It might be easier to visualize the look I am talking about with the four corners being different prints of the same color in this picture. As the block is formed with the four corners of the nine-patch as the center four of this block.

Here is another look that would be pretty in a quilt.

This pattern would be really interesting in a quilt, too.  You would have single small squares and then two diagonally from each other.

This one is a smaller version of an earlier one.  I think I like this look better.  This one would look cute with a child's novelity print for the larger red square.  You would have to "fussy cut" it for the framed look, but worth the effort.

This too is a smaller version of an earlier one I showed.














I will definitely be using one or two of these in a quilt.  It was fun just moving the pieces around and seeing the possibilities with a Disappearing Nine-Patch Block.  Maybe you will, too.  Let me know if you do.

UPDATE: I recently made a baby quilt using the disappearing nine patch. You can see it HERE.

UPDATE: Here is another lap-size quilt I made using the pattern.