It's Game Night! Introducing the Meeple Quilt Block!
It's your turn at game night - are you ready?? Today I am introducing the newest BluePip Designs pattern, the Meeple quilt block!
Meeple is not a full quilt pattern; instead it is a quilt block that you can use in any project you'd like! It works great as a repeated motif in a big project or as a single block in a sampler of game-related quilt blocks. It's up to you! The Meeple pattern is paper-pieced and includes templates for two finished sizes, a 6" block and a 12" block. If you've never paper pieced before, don't be worried; this block is beginner-friendly and easy to put together. It's the perfect paper-piecing starter block. The pattern does not include instructions for how to paper piece, but I've written a free tutorial explaining exactly how I paper piece. If you're an experienced paper-piecer, you'll have fun sewing together these fast, easy blocks that pack a big graphic punch!
When I'm not quilting, one of my favorite things to do is play board games with my family. We have over 160 games in our collection and we try to play every single one of them at least once each year, even the preschool games that we are too sentimental to give up. My son was designing a board game challenge that required everyone to have a marker on a scoreboard and he asked what I wanted to represent myself. Instantly I replied, "a blue Meeple mini quilt" (my love of blue is universal across all my hobbies!). As soon as I said it, I knew that I needed an actual blue meeple mini quilt. A quick Etsy search revealed no patterns available, and an Instagram search revealed only one meeple mini quilt (and it was several years old) so I set off to design my own. The mini quilt above was my very first Meeple and the small drawing in the corner is the marker that my son made for me!
Because of the unique shape of the Meeple, I knew paper piecing would be easier than traditional piecing to put the block together. I fell in love with paper piecing the first time I tried it (almost 10 years ago - there's a picture of my first attempt in my new tutorial) and while I've created small patterns for my personal use before, creating a paper pieced pattern for my pattern shop was a bucket-list item. This pattern also fulfilled a second quilting list item of creating a large color blocked quilt out of solid fabrics. The only thing holding me back from this goal was deciding what pattern to use for it, and as soon as I had the finished mini quilt in my hand, I knew there were a lot more Meeples in my future!
To finish my collection of Meeple projects, I made a pillow cover for an awkward bed pillow that wasn't quite right. This project features a rainbow of 6" Meeple blocks in Carcasonne colors, and as soon as I get the courage to box the corners and sew the back on it's going to make a great addition to our gaming room sofa!
My family was very supportive and excited about this pattern too. My
sister-in-law helped my mother-in-law find a Meeple cookie cutter so she could
bake me Meeple cookies for my birthday and my oldest son engraved a Meeple on his
shop class charcuterie board and gave it to me for Mother's Day!
I hope you find this Meeple as delightful as I do! The Meeple pattern is now available in my pattern shop, and the whole shop is on sale for 20% off until
the end of May, no coupon code needed!
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