Here it is, the penultimate block in the Test Your Skills Sampler: the Indiana Puzzle.

If you’re following the White & Bright layout, this block is orange, green, purple and yellow. The block finishes at 12″ (12 1/2″ unfinished).

The Indiana Puzzle block is made from sixteen Drunkard’s Path units. That’s a lot of curves, but I know you can do it! Since the block finishes at 12″, that means each Drunkard’s Path unit finishes at 3″, or 3 1/2″ unfinished. If you have an AccuQuilt you can use the 3 1/2″ finished die and trim it down. If you have plastic templates for blocks that finish at 3″ or larger, you can use them and trim down. If you don’t have either, I’ve created a couple of PDFs of the templates for you to use. One is for the exact size block and one is for a 3 1/2″ finished block that you can trim down to size after sewing. As always, when printing a PDF make sure it is printing actual size and not “fit to page” or some other scaled setting. Make sure it printed correctly by measuring the square side of the concave piece. Corner to corner on the INSIDE line it should measure 3″ or 3 1/2″, depending on which one you printed (it’s the finished size).

Click here to download the 3″ finished template
Click here to download the 3 1/2″ finished template

When using a template to cut out your fabric pieces, be careful not to cut the template. A few cuts, shaving off a little each time, and pretty soon they aren’t so accurate. You can try tracing them onto cardboard (an empty cereal box, for example) or template plastic to give it a little more substance. You could also trace the template onto the fabric then cut just the fabric. Though you verified the size by measuring the inside line, you need to cut the templates on the outside line.

Follow the instructions in the Skill Builder Series post about curved piecing. With sixteen units, you can experiment with the different methods to see what works best for you. It is important that you trim the units to 3 1/2″. In order to do that, the “points” of the seams should be on the 1 1/2″ mark. If I’d been thinking when I posted the Skill Builder I would have trimmed to that size instead of trimming to 3 3/4″. Ah, well – part of this project is about building skills, and being able to adapt instructions to fit your needs is a good skill to have.

After you’ve sewn all sixteen Drunkard’s Path units, lay them out to form the four circle units and sew them together. The circle units should measure 6 1/2″ unfinished. Sew the four circles together – the final block should measure 12 1/2″ unfinished. Don’t worry too much about this being exactly the right size. When we put the top together we’ll be adding background pieces that we can fudge a little where necessary.

Just one more block to go – the “dreaded” Feathered Star – and then it’s on to quilt top assembly. I missed my birthday deadline – let’s see if we can get this done by oh, say, Memorial Day? As always, let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.