Terrazzo, Finished

After making a zillion flowers the other day, I was exhausted, so I spent the next day parked on the couch in front of the TV watching tennis at the US Open. I wasn't idle. I spent the whole day hand sewing the binding on the black and white Slashed Squares quilt, which I have named Terrazzo.

 Here's the front.

Here's the back.

One of my readers sent me a big box full of black and white fabric. I used them to make some half sized blocks, as well as three double sized blocks which I used on the back.

The regular blocks finish out at 14", the half size blocks finish out at 7" and the doubles finish out at 28" square.

If you make this quilt, there is one important thing to remember - make half your square in square blocks with busy insides and calm outsides, and half with calm insides and busy outsides. For a black and white quilt, that meant half my blocks were white squares surrounded by black, and half were black squares surrounded by white.

I also chose fabrics that had a variety of patterns - some were organic and some were geometric. Some were very large prints, and some were smaller scale prints. I had to be careful with the small scale prints though, because those often "read" as gray. Once concession was that some of the prints were actually black and cream. I decided the prints were so cool it was OK. We all have little rules that we follow in our heads. You have to be able to ignore that internal critic sometimes, especially if it improves the design of the quilt.

When I paired up the blocks, I also tried to pair a geometric pattern with an organic one, as well as a contrast in scale of print.

Then, when you "slash" them apart and rearrange your pieces, you get interesting blocks.  The only other rule I adhered to when I bought fabrics for this quilt was I didn't want the blocks to read as "gray" when viewed from a distance. I wanted them to be very distinctly black and white. It's a lot to juggle, and the success of the black and white version is entirely due to fabric choices and placement.

The quilt was designed to be used as a table cover, and I made it to use when a couple of the extra leaves are in place to make the table big enough for a gathering of 8 to 10.

I'm happy with the way it came out, and Larry's salt and pepper grinders look right at home!


Update: I've added a page to the blog showing all the Slashed Squares quilts I have made over the years. You can find it here.