This bonus block was released in honor of Earth Day, April 22, 2016. To make it, I broke my rule of not using blue in my blocks (I set up that constraint to challenge myself to explore other colors, because I love blue) because the earth in the center is supposed to be blue and green, of course. I found a mostly-purple batik with a little blue and green and used that for two of the wedges.

I am thrilled with how the quilting on this one turned out. I wanted to surround the center earth circle with lots of little patterns to suggest the universe. I was a little nervous about trying that in such a small space, but I love the final effect. I echoed the center circle to set it off first. Then I quilted radiating lines in every other patch, then filled in with paisley swirls and pebbles in the remaining patches. For once, I couldn’t be happier with the result!

Earth Day is a bonus block from the Splendid Sampler quilt-along and was designed by Cheryl Arkison. You can still get the PDF pattern on the block’s Splendid Sampler page.