Jenny is our Queen Bee for the month of July, and the Bee is to make her Birch Blocks. Instructions and photos, provided by Jenny, are below. Please reach out to her with any questions.

For this block you’ll need a solid medium blue, scraps in white (just 1 white fabric, please), and gray-scale tones including some darker gray. For the white and gray fabrics: prints that look textured would be nice if you have them!

Cut your white scraps into strips ~7” long and between 2” and 3” wide

Cut your gray scale scraps into strips ~7” long and between ¾” and 1 ½ “

Stitch your scraps together to make a panel of stripes at least 7” x 9 ½ ”, favoring white scraps. The grays should just be accents. [The panel pictured is odd dimensions because I was still playing around with the pattern]

Press seams open.

[Optional: Trim the edges to even your scrap block. It should be about 7” wide and 9 ½ ” tall with horizontal stripes.]

Cut your scrap block vertically into 3, 2” strips (the stripes will be running horizontally).

Cut your blue into a 3 ½ “ x 9 ½ “ rectangle and a 2 ½ “ x 9 ½ “ rectangle.

Cut the narrower rectangle vertically either in half or 1” and 1 ½”

Cut the wider rectangle on a slight angle, NOT corner to corner.

Alternate blue pieces and stripey “tree” strips however you want to assemble into a block. Flip one of the “tree” strips to make your three tree trunks less uniform and repetitive.