State Fair sew-along Single Irish Chain

Hopefully, you've had some fun sorting through your 2-inch and 3-1/2-inch scrap bags for whites/neutrals and greens.  For this State Fair quilt you will need four Single Irish Chain blocks and five Sunflower blocks.  The blocks finish at 9 inches square (9-1/2 inches unfinished.)

I'm going to call the background 'white' just to keep things simple, but use a variety of light neutrals, whites  and creams if you like a scrappy look.

Start with your 2-inch white scraps and 2-inch green scraps.  You will be making 16 green-and-white 4-patch blocks. They will be used in the corners of the Single Irish Chain blocks.   As you can see from the photo below, I was able to do a bit of strip piecing with my scraps. Take a minute to check all your 4-patch blocks and make sure they are perfectly 3-1/2 inches square.  Trim a bit if necessary.

As long as we have the 2-inch scraps out, let's work ahead.  You will need 20 blocks made up of one white 2-inch square, one green 2-inch square, and one white 2 x 3-1/2-inch rectangle as shown in the photo. Once those are pieced, take a minute to check them all and make sure they are perfectly 3-1/2 inches square.  Trim a bit if necessary. They will be used for the four corners of the Sunflower blocks, so set those aside until tomorrow.

From your 3-1/2-inch scraps, cut four green 3-1/2-inch squares for the centers, and sixteen 3-1/2-inch squares for the sides of the Single Irish Chain blocks.  The Single Irish Chain blocks are assembled in 9-patch style.  Watch the direction of the green squares in the 4-patch corners.

Press your four Single Irish Chain blocks well and square up to 9-1/2 inches unfinished.  Tomorrow we make Sunflowers!