Square Dance Block Construction

4” Square Dance Block – 2-1/8” wedge strips, 2-3/8” center square strips

6” Square Dance Block – 3” wedge strips, 3-5/8” center square strips

8” Square Dance Block – 3-7/8” wedge strips, 4-1/4 center square strips

Cutting – For the sampler, cut one strip by width of fabric (WoF) from 15 different pinwheel fabrics. Each colored pinwheel strip will be used to create two pinwheels. Make sure there is good contrast between each of these fabrics and between the pinwheel and background fabrics.

From the background fabric, cut two WoF pinwheel strips and two WoF background square strips.

Place three pinwheel fabric strips right sides up in a stack aligning the edges carefully. Place the pinwheel template on the left end of the stack of strips with the longest edge of the template along the bottom edge of the strip. Cut completely across the fabric as shown. This initial cut will make it easier to perform the remaining cuts. Pull the strip stack away from the template and finish cutting around the template.

For the next set of cuts, rotate the template so the long edge of the template is along the top edge of the pinwheel fabric strip stack. Make sure you do not turn the template over. Keep the template text facing up. Keep the fabric edges aligned. By cutting carefully there will be very little waste.  Make the marked cut first, then pull the remainder of the strip stack away and cut around the rest of the template. Continue until you’ve cut eight pinwheels from each stack. Repeat the cut/rotate/cut process for the background fabric pinwheel strips. You will need a total of 30 background pinwheel pieces.

Cut 40 squares from the center squares background strips. These are the centers of the blocks.