Rocky Road to Dublin quilt block

Rocky Road to Dublin

August 15, 1933-The Rocky Road to Dublin quilt block was Nancy Cabot's block of the day in her Chicago Tribune column. The block originated in Ireland as one might suspect from it's name.

Nancy wrote, "It may symbolize a rocky road, but it also appears to be a very gay and interesting one."

Her drawing of the Rocky Road to Dublin block showed many fabrics making it much more scrappy than most of the blocks she has shown before. I placed the fabrics in my block just like she illustrated them. I chose all green fabrics since that the color associated with us Irish.

Though this block may look a little complex, it is really just made up of some basic units-four patches and half square triangles.




This is how the parts lay out for my 6" Rocky Road to Dublin block-

The middle section of each side was made by paper piecing.  You can download my pattern pieces here. To make the four patches use 1 1/2" squares of fabric. To make the half square triangle blocks in the corners, use 1 7/8" squares cut on the diagonal to make your triangles. Sew the blocks together in rows and sew the rows together and you have a Rocky Road to Dublin quilt block.

This block can be found in Electric Quilt's Blockbase program as #1696.  Quilter's Cache has a pattern for a 12" block and here's the interesting quilt layout they suggest.

Tomorrow-Single Lily