I’m as guilty as anyone of wandering the internet, though I do limit the number of social media outlets I visit. I find more inspiration per minute on the internet than I used to find from books and magazines, so I guess it’s an upgrade despite my love of books. Anyway, I recently came across the work of Rob Appell, whose website is here.

Here’s the cover of the pattern that caught my eye.

I was quite impressed with his work and promptly ordered one of his patterns and the templates to make it.

And the templates.

Both pattern and templates are good quality, with the templates being sturdy and the pattern printed in excellent color on heavy paper.

One of my favorite features of this template set is that Rob has named the templates rather than giving them letters or numbers! The names are Jerry (the big triangle), Phil (the half circle that is inset into the triangle–yes, you read that right), and Bobby for the flattened isosceles triangle that makes up 1/3 of a 3-dimensional 60 degree triangle. I chuckle every time I see the names in his instructions.

Even better, the templates have holes for hanging and the points are nipped so that all pieces fit together smoothly.

However, this pattern is not for the faint of heart or even the advanced beginner. Instructions are perfectly good for the experienced quilter, but I think anybody else would want a good bit more hand-holding. And of course you can see from the picture above that these are complex blocks. That said, he’s broken them down so they aren’t as complicated as they look. And they’re easy enough to sew if you have some experience with circles and triangles.

I made a little sample to try out the templates and his techniques, and it went together quite well.I doubt I’ll make the sampler quilt the way he designed it, but I can see lots of uses for these templates in my own designs. More fun ahead!