I spent time this week catching up to my students on my blocks. I had the pieces to the Drunkard’s Path blocks cut for weeks, but couldn’t seem to get them together. I pinned and pinned and pinned and pinned and pinned and something didn’t seem right. I couldn’t figure out what it was and I couldn’t sew the things with so many pins. Per chance, I picked up Ruth McDowell’s Piecing book. If you don’t have this book, get it. It is the best.
Anyway, I read the bits about sewing curves and found the problem. Clipping! I had forgotten to clip the concave part of the curve. I think I was so caught up in having problems with the block when I was a beginner and trying to make the Drunkard’s Path that I couldn’t think straight.
I sewed all the little blocks together then played with the layout for a few days and came up with the following layouts:
![Drunkard's Path](https://www.artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DPsm2-291x300.jpg)
Good graphic look on this one.
![Drunkard's Path #2](https://www.artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DPsm3-295x300.jpg)
I really like the way the middle circle comes forward in this design.
![Drunkard's Path #4](https://www.artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DPsm4-1-300x297.jpg)
Not sure what the heck this is supposed to be, but it obviously doesn’t work.
![Drunkard's Path #5](https://www.artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DPsm5-1-300x298.jpg)
I like the way the pinwheel type design shows up. This is my second favorite.
![Drunkard's Path #6](https://www.artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DPsm6-295x300.jpg)
Again good graphic look, but the way the circles go off the side don’t appeal to me as much as the other layouts.
![Drunkard's Path #7](https://www.artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DPsm7-300x293.jpg)
This is supposed to be an X, but the X doesn’t show up, because I used three colors (2 for the background) instead of just two total.
Until I finally decided on the design below. I did have a hard time deciding between this and the pinwheels:
![Drunkard's Path Final](https://www.artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DPFinal-300x297.jpg)
This exercise, again, shows how great blocks are. I could make a whole quilt with this block and do each one with a different layout. I think that there is so much that can be done with block designs.