Churn Dash Reversible Apron

Churn Dash Challenge Entry

This apron was made with my grand-niece in mind. She had a birthday this month and turned 13.

At our Spring Quilt Retreat earlier this year each participant was gifted a churn dash (CD) block and told to make something with it for a challenge to be held in September. My CD block has been stored in a very safe place which is so safe that it cannot be found. So I had to create my own block.

Traditional Churn Dash Block

The block we received at the retreat was a traditional churn dash block.

My Modified Churn Dash Block

Since my traditional block went missing, I could design my own churn dash block which needed the following components to make a 9" finished block.

One 3-1/2" Printed Square

One 14" Strip Cut Into Four 3-1/2" Segments
Made from
two 1-1/2" white strips &
one 1-1/2" printed strip

One Printed & One White 5-1/2" Squares
Sewn 1/4" around the perimeter of the square
and cut twice on the diagonal 

The formula for making 4 half-square-triangles from a dark and light square is

Size of HST + 2" = Size of each of the two squares

3.5" + 2" = 5.5"

Completed Churn Dash Block

Then a decision had to be made as to what to do with this block. There were the usual cushion or table top covers, a wall-hanging or a medallion for a baby quilt. I decided to make an apron. Before the apron was constructed, a 1" border was added to the churn dash block to make it stand out. 

Waterproof Nylon Apron

I used an existing nylon apron as a template, turned it over to its wrong side and pinned the cotton material to the inside of the white piping and strings. Then the cotton material was cut to the outside dimensions of the apron.

The completed apron

To avoid the tedium of having to construct new piping and apron strings, I decided to leave the nylon apron in place, folded and pinned the outer edges of the printed cotton to fit just within the piping and sewed the whole thing all the way around. 

What we have now is a reversible apron, one side that is waterproof!

As I thought, when all the entries were displayed at the challenge, there was only one apron and several cushions and wall-hangings. I hope this project has broken through my quilter's block because there are a whole slew of projects just waiting to happen.