This week's Sewcialites block, designed by Lisa Bongean, is called Loyal. This block is labeled beginner, and it was a lovely, quick sew after work today. It only took me 40 minutes from grabbing the fabric to trimming the block. Because it was so speedy, I didn't take many pictures or use the Alphabities.

There is less contrast between the solid and print fabrics this week, but I'm happy with how it looks. Overall, the quilt will have heavily contrasting and lower contrast blocks, so I think it will balance out. I did use a design board for this. It's nice that the fabric sticks to it, so things don't go wonky if there's a breeze. (Yes, this has happened to me more than once, including recently with the Jawbreaker layout.)

Loyal is another block that uses HSTs, so I grabbed my Triangles on a Roll. I utilized the 3.5" strip of solid that I cut for last week's block, so I didn't have to wrangle with a larger piece. I also had a smaller scrap that I trimmed to the required 1.5" square. For the print pieces, I cut a 3.5" strip from the fat quarter and used that for the piece I needed for the HSTs and the rectangles.

Before assembling, I double-checked the finished size on my HSTs. Since last week's block came out a hair large, I don't think I'm hitting precisely the right spot on the line when trimming my paper. The HSTs were a tiny bit larger than the 3" size the pattern called for, so I trimmed it off.

Sewing this block together was a breeze since there weren't many seams to match. Trimming it was also relatively easy, and the block ended up closer to 6.5" than last week's.

It was nice to have a quick block after the more complex first block, almost like a palette cleanser. It also leaves me extra time to work on the other projects on my list...and there are many. I'm hoping that I'll have a few things to share after this weekend (or over the weekend).