Hen & Chicks Jacob's Ladder Block 11

 

I seem to be on a tour of classic quilt blocks lately.  Jacob's Ladder is one that makes a great overall secondary pattern.  Those are great for scrappy quilts that need a unifying fabric.  Imagine using this for all your leader and ender 4 patches with a commonly themed fabric or color in the HST units.  The "problem" with sampler quilts is that it spawns so many ideas for new quilts.  

In addition to 4 HST units, you will also need a strip set with background and a contrasting purple.   

Sew the strip set together and press toward the purple.   

Next, sub cut the strips to get your pairs which you will sew together to make four patches.   

When pressing the four patches, I like to open up the center seam.  You can press to one side if you prefer, but I love to decrease bulk whenever possible.  

Next, in the layout, create a ladder.  The purples in the HST units all point toward the center of the block and the diagonal lines run parallel to one another.  The purple square in the four patches make a diagonal line in the opposite direction.   

When you sewn the squares together in a nine patch, you should see the strong visuals of the opposing diagonals which make this such a fun block for a one block quilt.