Tea Leaf quilt block

Tea Leaf

March 19, 1933-"Tea Leaf" Is First in Quilt Series Commemorating Historic Events was the title of Nancy Cabot's column in the Chicago Tribune eighty years ago today.  The Tea Leaf quilt block has also been called Tea Party which commemorates the Boston Tea Party!  She says that the block is from revolutionary  days and was always made in green and white.

She said "blocks cut and pieced of pastel colors and modern materials will be quite as pretty" in reference to the traditional green and white blocks.  She also felt it had "a definite modern feeling" even though it is a very old pattern.

I made this block before I started this blog and made it according to Electric Quilt's BlockBase program.  It is #857.07 in that program.





Nancy Cabot showed the block put together a little differently.  She constructed it as a 16 patch.  It was made from plain squares and half square triangles.  I made my 6" version with 4 paper piecing sections.  You can download the pattern here.  The stem and bottom of flower are 1 section, the top of the flower is 1 section, and each of the leaves with background is a section.  The stem section is wider than Nancy Cabot had hers drawn but I like the scale of this one better.  I really like this block and could see a whole quilt of them!  Another potential way to use up a bunch of scraps.

Tomorrow-Sunburst #2