Block of the Month for August - Cake Stand

I wanted to come up with an appropriate block for August, so I started thinking about what was significant about this month that I could connect with a quilt block.  Since my birthday is this month, I thought something birthday related might be fun.  There are a lot of cute modern cake blocks, but since I like working with traditional blocks, I decided to go with Cake Stand.  This block dates back to the 1800's.  It looks a little like a basket block, but I think that the difference is that the triangles go sideways instead of cross-ways for the Cake Stand block.

So, without further ado - the Cake Stand Block:

You can use a 10 inch square for the print part of this block, plus cut a charm square out of the extra to save for another project if you like!  Here is how I cut out the pieces to get the most out of that piece of fabric.

I used my handy Omni-Grid triangle ruler to cut out the largest triangle first.  My favorite thing about this ruler is that it is marked so you can easily just cut the size of finished triangle you need.  

After cutting the triangle, I turned the square and cut two 3 3/8 squares from the side.  

Those get cut in half to make four of the triangles I need.  

The next step is cutting the 5 inch square.  That I set aside - I am cutting these from scraps for a future quilt!  

This rectangle is large enough to cut two 3 3/8 inch triangles, which finishes the block pieces.

I can get one more triangle from the remaining piece.  This is an extra triangle, so will save that in my scrap bin as well.  

The final piece is a 2 x 2 1.2 inch piece for a mini dresden quilt.  I am trying to remember to cut at least one of these from each fabric I use in a project.  

I cut all these pieces from a 10 inch square from an Island Batik Stack (Florida Oranges).  The finished block is 10 inches square (10 1/2 with seam allowances).

In my next post I'll show you the step by step of how to piece this easy block!