June was a lot of fun for me. I did one block on a "new" 1890 White VS III and the other two on an approx. 1884 White VS II. I learned a lot about these two models, and was even able to quilt the blocks on them, and also do some minor clothing repairs.

Anyway, for June I offer one very easy block, one medium, and one harder.

Hourglass is an easy block, based on 4" units. Begin by making two 4 1/2" triangle-squares using medium and background fabrics. Then cut two 4 1/2" squares of the medium fabric, four 4 1/2" squares of the dark fabric, and one 4 1/2" square of background. Arrange the resulting squares as shown in the picture and piece them together. Border and quilt to your usual practice.

Brief study will show that this is a 16 patch based on 3" units, all of which are triangle squares. Make eight triangle squares of background and dark fabrics, and eight of background and the medium fabric. Assemble as per picture and join them. Border and quilt to your usual practice. There are some spots on this one where you will have quite thick folded over seams, so be careful when you quilt it. Keep your foot pressure loose or use an even feed foot.

Might have just been me, or it might have been that this was the first effort on my White VS machine, but I had some trouble with this one. The machine didn't like to run a straight seem, which turned out to be a worn foot/worn feed dog problem. I did get the block OK, though.

Assembly on this one is a little tricky, needs to be in the right order, and there are a lot of seams, so be careful with your seam allowances or you may come out offsize. The unit size is 2".

You will need twelve 2 1/2" triangle squares of background and dark fabric (the blue here) and sixteen 2 1/1" triangle squares of background and medium fabric (the red here), plus one 4 1/2" square of the dark. Arrange the squares as shown in the picture. Don't panic if things don't look right, you have uneven numbers of seams.

Let's do the middle two rows first. Join the left edge two medium triangle squares as shown, then two just inside them. Repeat on the right side. Now join the two resulting units to the dark square in the middle.

Next, join the top row squares and the second row squares as you usually would. Repeat with the bottom two rows. You will now have three double rows. Join them and you have your block. Border and quilt to your usual practice.

OK, that's June! I don't know about you, but I now have 18 finished, quilted blocks. When I lay them out, they really look like something. I am not going to assemble my quilt till I have finished the year, as I know I don't want a 36 block quilt, and I will want to select the blocks that look most pleasing together.

I hope you're having as much fun with this project as I am.

The Captain