July Block

One of my favorite design tricks is to take a traditional block, like Monkey Wrench below, ask myself questions about what I can do to modify it into a new block.

So I ask myself questions like: what happens if I change the location of light and dark fabrics? Here, you can see it creates a reverse image of the block, like the negative of a photograph. (Does anyone still use negatives anymore?)


But then I wonder, would it be more interesting if I added more fabrics to the block?


I like where this is going, but I could take it further. What would happen if I turned the center square into a four-patch?


And so in asking myself these questions, I changed a traditional Monkey Wrench block into July's block.