Block 8 - Snail's Trail

We are in Week 8 of The Spicerack Sampler! And this week our block is called Snail's Trail!

Click the picture to download the pattern.

I had never made a snail's trail block before testing this out for my sampler.  But I've wanted to for a very long time! And it was so fun to create!  But I want to know why this design is also called a Monkey Wrench.  Because when I search Monkey Wrench online, I get churn dash blocks.  So I decided to go with the Snail's Trail name for my pattern.

Once I got into making it, I realized this is really just a square in a square, but the swirl appears because of the coloring.

Have you every made a snail's trail before?

Click the image below to see me assemble this block on YouTube.

There are so many fun things you can do with this design with different rotations of the blocks and different colorings.  Check out these mock-ups I put together in EQ8!

For this first one, I just repeated the block with the colorway shown above in my example, two-tone, a dark fabric and a light fabric.  Very swirly!

In this second one, I rotated some of the blocks to bring out this pattern! 

Then, I wanted to explore what it would look like if I colored each quadrant of the block a different color.  Then I repeated that block all throughout the quilt.

But then what happens if you rotate just the second, fourth, and sixth rows? You get this cool look!

And finally, I colored the block with four shades of blue for a monochromatic look.  This one really says ocean waves to me!

What do you think? Which one do you like best? Let me know in the comments below!

As I mentioned above and throughout this series, I whipped up these mock-ups in EQ8.  Do you use EQ8?

If you're just now joining me in this series, here is a picture of the complete set.  These 12 blocks I'm calling The Spicerack Sampler! They're all classic quilt blocks, but I'm attempting to put a modern spin on each one.  I hope you join me in making these! They range from easy to more challenging, but they're meant to be a skill builder.  I'll walk you through each step and help you add a number of skills to your repertoire!  And these are all traditionally pieced.  No Y-seams, paper templates or foundation paper piecing.

A new block releases every Monday!

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