BOW #11 Bow Tie

I love the Bow Tie block.  It can be very casual and country (can't you see it made it with shirtings?) or funky or elegant.  Years ago I made a small wall quilt with bow ties set over white rectangles with little buttons running vertically down from the tie, so that it looked like a formal shirt.  I wish I had take a photo of it.  (Another "note to self...")

The quilt shown at the end of this post was made "the hard way"  (with what's called a Y-seam, when you have to turn a corner in the middle of a seam) but you can do it more easily.  Let's do it that way.

For a 12" finished block you'll need:
(2) 6-1/2" dark squares
(2) 6-1/2" background squares
(2) 3-1/2" dark squares

On the wrong side of the smaller dark squares draw a diagonal line, corner to corner.  Place one of these squares, right sides together, on a corner of a background square. Make sure the small square is placed with the drawn line as shown below.  Sew on the drawn line.

 Trim off the corner, leaving about a quarter inch seam allowance, and fold back the dark square.  There is now a triangle on the square--and you didn't have to deal with bias edges! Repeat with the other small, dark square and background square.  (This technique is used quite often in quilting.  If you did this on all four corners you'd have a Square in a Square block; if you used smaller squares and did it on each corner you'd have a Snowball block  But that's another story.)

Now sew the 4 pieces as shown below, and you have a Bow Tie!   You can play with the proportions, if you like:  make the small squares smaller and your tie will be tied a little tighter, with a narrower tie.

Have fun tying your Bow Tie!