The Churn Dash or Monkey Wrench block is one of the all time favorite quilt blocks. It has been around for a long time and has multiple names. It is an easy block to make which a lot of visual interest, which I think is part of its appeal.

Change the fabric in the corner half square triangle block, and without changing the pieces used to make the block, you have a block called Chinese Square. (Using a variety of novelty fabrics in the central square. the Chinese Square block would make a great I-Spy quilt for child).

The traditional Monkey Wrench block is on the left, the Chinese Square on the right. (The pictures stack on a mobile device—the Chinese Square is the block with pink completely surrounding the central square).

Here’s a quilt that uses both the Churn Dash and Chinese Square blocks. When I look at it quickly, I have to remind myself that there are two different blocks in this quilt diagram.

Want to change the block again? Take away the paired blocks between the half square triangle blocks in the corners and you have a block called Sho-fly. It’s a simple block. Put it in a quilt and you get a plaid with a ric rack border. I tried taking away the color in the central block, leaving just the 4 triangles. I wondered if that might make an interesting modern quilt. It does nothing interesting. It’s just the same as the quilt below without the interesting yellow cornerstones.

But I had a hunch that this block had potential. So I tried a feature in the Electric Quilt 8 software* called Serendipity which can manipulate a block in a variety of ways. I chose the simplest one—cutting the block into 4 sections. The sections are then rotated and reassembled with the cut yellow squares on the outer edge of the block. Now you have a block which spins! And look at the quilt! It dances. Two names come to mind for the quilt—Christmas Cracker and Orange Grove.

We’ve fallen down a rabbit hole on this post. But haven’t we had fun?

*I used the EQ8 software to do all the designing in this blog post.