Mood Ring Block Tutorial

While I’m off traveling in China for work this week, I thought it would be a good time to give you a tutorial for my Mood Ring block. It’s really simple, but is a great starting place to use some charm squares, jelly roll strips, or crazy scraps you’ve been wondering what to do with. I made my 68″ square Mood Ring quilt using half-yards of twelve solids. 

While I recommend using a minimum of eight different fabrics in the construction of this block, you can definitely use more, and incorporate prints as well! The more fabric combinations you use the greater variation your final quilt blocks will contain.   

For each starter block, choose two fabrics and cut:  

(1) – 5″ x 5″   

and  

(2) – 2.5″ x 9″

(2) – 2.5″ x 5″

Using a scant quarter inch seam allowance, sew the 2.5″ x 5″ pieces to opposing sides of the 5″ x 5″ piece.

Iron seams to the side. Then sew the 2.5″ x 9″ pieces to the opposing sides of this piece.

Iron seams to the side. You now have a square within a square block that should measure 9″ square.

Use your ruler and rotary cutter to cut this starter block on both diagonals. Handle these cut pieces carefully as you will now have bias edges that can easily stretch.

Create other starter blocks using other fabric combinations. Shown below are four starter blocks created from eight colours.

Gather one of the triangle sections from each of the cut starter blocks.  

Using a scant quarter inch seam, sew it together with a different triangle section. Again, remember these are bias edges so don’t pull or push them through your machine as they will stretch. If your seams don’t line up exactly, don’t worry too much because when it is all together there will be such a riot of colour that no one will notice!

Iron this seam to the side. Follow the same procedure with two different triangle sections from starter blocks.

Iron this seam to the side. Then sew the two triangle sections together to form a square. When doing this, nest the very centre seams to try and create a sharp quarter-square-triangle point in the middle of the block.

The block should finish at 8″ square. You can square up individual blocks, and/or at least cut the dog ears off the corners to reduce any future seam bulk when combining multiple blocks together. 

I hope this tutorial has been helpful, and with it you find a way to express your own mood with this Mood Ring block!