SQUIRREL!!!

 

I have unofficially joined Julie's Squirrel Club. This is the beginnings of a Slashed Squares Quilt.

I have a friend (I shall call her P) and I have decided to make her a quilt. P is the kind of gal who does everything for her family. Once a week she hosts a family dinner and cooks complicated recipes from her family's Armenian heritage. The head of the family is her father, an irascible gent close to 90 who can't do much for himself (except complain). P may or may not be getting a divorce and moving out of the home she built with her husband almost 40 years ago. She recently took care of her daughter who had all four wisdom teeth extracted at the same time. Her son's dog has some intestinal issues so she makes dog food for him once a week. Both of these kids are over 30.

Now whatever each of us may think about P's devotion to her family - those are our own opinions. We (and certainly not me) do not know the WHOLE story. But P and I have been having lunch once a month throughout the pandemic over FaceTime and every month it's the same thing. P takes care of everybody else. Who takes care of P? It's as if she is invisible to her family.

It pissed me off.

Since I am sort of between projects, I decided the next quilt I make would be for P. So I thought of colors for her. I thought of blues and greens, and maybe some lavenders. I thought of birds and flowers. I started pulling fabrics.

Then I told her. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. She was overwhelmed and started to cry. I had got her colors exactly right. "How did you do that?" she wanted to know. I don't have an answer, but stuff like that has happened before, so I don't question it any more. At first she resisted, telling me not to go to so much trouble. Well, too late. Besides, for me, making quilts and creating is like breathing. Everybody in my family already has one of my quilts, I have a studio full of fabric and I'm not getting any younger. I'm going to make quilts anyway, I might as well spread love around while I do it. I have a houseful of quilts....

Eventually we came to a compromise. She will pay for the quilting and I promised not to go out and spend money on fabric for her quilt. When I sent her the picture of the preliminary blocks, (above) she texted back, "I feel like I've won the lottery in so many ways."

We should all feel like that.

So I'm doing a squirrel run.

If you want to make a Slashed Squares quilt, I have a tutorial for that.

Goose Rocks Beach, Quilted

 

The Goose Rocks Beach quilt has been quilted. The quilting design is called "Undertow," which is amazingly appropriate!

I made the flimsy back in January of this year. It's a Slashed Squares quilt, and very easy to make. This one is made from scraps and fabrics from my stash. You can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

When I made the quilt I thought it was handsome, but it didn't really thrill me. But now that it has been quilted, I really like it.

I think I am going to use the brown fabric for the binding.

Binding Jigsaw Puzzle

This is the scrappy mini slashed squares quilt I made last June and the backing I selected for it. It has been quilted, and I had to figure out what to use for the binding. Thing was, I didn't want to buy fabric if I didn't have to, so I poked around through my stash. I wanted a fabric that was multi-colored, to reflect the scrappiness of the top, and I also wanted it to look good with the backing. I decided the blue fish fabric I used as backing for Treasure Trove would fit the bill.

So I prepared that fabric and started to sew it to the quilt.

Regular readers know I sew my binding to the back of my quilts, and do my hand sewing down on the front.

I've got it all pinned and now it is ready for me to hand sew it down.

Yup, I think this is going to look just great.



The Slashed Squares quilt is a quilt that goes together very quickly and looks great made from scraps. You can get my tutorial to make this quilt here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.

Jigsaw Puzzle is a Flimsy!

Here's the finished flimsy of the scrappy Slashed Squares quilt made from mini (7") blocks. (Try saying that three times fast.)

Here's the all pink version, made with 14" sized blocks. (These two flimsies are the same size.)

Here's the Dark/Light version, again made with 14" sized blocks.


If you want to make your own Slashed Squares quilt, mini or otherwise, you can get my tutorial here, in my Etsy shop. It has instructions on how to make these blocks in three sizes. The tute is an instant download, so you can get started right away.

Scrappy 64

Here are 64 square inside a square blocks. I had a lot of fun rummaging around through my stash to find some of these fabrics to make interesting pairs. I tried not to repeat any fabrics. (I decided it was OK to use a fabric as a center square and then an outer square.)

Next I'll cut each of these into quarters and then I'll shuffle the pieces and put them all back together until I have a flimsy 56" square.

It seems I m constitutionally unable to make a quilt without sewing something together and then cutting it apart and THEN sewing it together again. 

Which reminds me. I was in a chat room once with a bunch of other geeks. We were talking about the crazy things we did on our own time. Here is what I wrote: "I buy big pieces of fabric and cut them apart into little pieces of fabric and then sew them back together into big pieces of fabric again."

Sixty-Four

To make my scrappy Slashed Squares quilt using the mini blocks, I'll need 64 of them. Here I have 16 blocks made, and I've selected the center blocks for the rest. Now I can have some fun building the rest of them.




If you want to make a Slashed Squares Quilt, go to my Etsy shop and get the tutorial. It includes the dimensions to make these minis.

99.999%

The new Slashed Squares tutorial is 99.999% finished. I have to write up a description for Etsy and then I will publish it.

I'm very excited, and a little bit exhausted. It only took, I think 12 versions, before I got it to where I wanted it.

I want to give a shout out to my proofreaders and reviewers for helping get this thing into shape:
Julie Sefton, Allison Tom, Megan Fisher and Mary Lorimor.

One is an experienced quilter, one is a writer and quilter, one is a retired Anthropology professor and one a quilter and teacher. Each of them is a great friend. The ladies live in three countries - the US, Australia and Canada.

They pushed me around, challenged my ideas and my process, helped me with the flow and sequencing, corrected my grammar and punctuation, gently and sometimes not so gently, but the end result is something I think is really good.

It's an improvement over what I had before: the new tutorial includes directions for making the block in three sizes, shows several color photographs of my finished quilts, has specific cutting instructions, dimensions for the quilt in various sizes and includes the time saving hints and tricks I've learned over the years.

Coming soon.  Don't worry. I'll let you know when it's live!