Im completely fascinated by the flexibility of a drunkard path block! A classic one has a distinct pie and L shape, forming a quarter circle. A more contemporary one moves the circle part out to the edges and looses its L…but both are wildly creative elements.

Here is a basic tutorial on sewing a drunkard’s path curved block…it is WAY easier than you think! And then…Im going to make it even easier for you.

In my pattern Lantern Glow, I’ve used a classic drunkard path template and beautiful Alison Glass Kaleidoscope stripes and plaid fabrics to capture the glowing beauty of a lantern festival. In the process though, I discovered I am not really very satisfied with existing templates. One of the most popular ones, which I have isn’t even a true quarter circle! It looks like it…but once I was quilting…I realized I had to fudge my circle rulers to stitch in the ditch. Mystified, I tired to get to the bottom of it and realized the templates themselves had a 1/8″ error between the radius of the sides and the radius of the 45 degree angle.

This alone was enough to make my inner perfectionist go bananas. Beyond that, the templates are designed to “exactly finish at 4″ (or whatever size you have)”…but the fact is…if you aren’t a A+ kind of sewing rock star….the block doesn’t always turn out 4” square, but you are stuck with it. Unless you want to square up smaller than 4″…too bad, so sad!

Fortunately…I’ve been manufacturing quilting rulers a long time and I have the contacts to fix this! So…with a little humor…The Perfect Drunk!! A 4″ drunkard path cutting template with an accurate radius and extra fudge factor fabric around the outside seam allowance was born! And then…because I cant resist a good joke…the Sober Up tool…for squaring the final block consistently and accurately to 4″.