Second strip

 I've added the second strip to the mini slashed squares blocks. Here you can see all of them. I will make more, of course, and use the ones that work together the best.

What's Next?

 

Now that the PRIZM quilt and its backing are all ready for the longarm quilter, the design wall is empty.

EEK!

My studio has been a real mess, with fabric strewn about everywhere. I spent some time over the weekend folding up what could be folded and putting it back in the stash, but there's a lot that's just piled up. I wasn't in the mood to make slabs, but I did want to do something, and a dear colleague of mine has just become a grandfather for the first time. A scrappy baby quilt would be just the ticket to clear off my worktables and get me busy.

I decided to make a slashed squares quilt - but in minis. This is practically the simplest quilt anywhere. Surround a square with fabric, cut that apart and rearrange the pieces. You can see pictures of the various slashed squares quilts here. You can get the tutorial for them here. 

Over the last couple of evenings I cut squares and strips and paired them up. I used only what I had lying around. I did not cut into yardage from my stash, nor did I go rummaging in my scrap bins. I just took what was lying around in a mess, and cut from that. 

(True story. A couple of weeks ago as I was FaceTiming with my California family, I showed off a quilt I was working on in my studio. On my way to the design wall, I walked past my stash. "Oh Memere," my DGD exclaimed, "You have a lot of quilts." I paused. "Oh no, honey, those aren't quilts, that's just my fabrics. I use those to MAKE quilts...")

When I got bored with cutting I ran the pairs through my sewing machine, 

then I pressed them. Next up will be adding fabric to the opposite sides. Then I'll trim them down and add fabric strips to the other two sides. This stack has about 35 sets. I haven't calculated how big I want this quilt to be, or how many blocks I'll need just yet. 

BTW, it's my best pal Julie's birthday today. Swing on over to her blog and leave her some birthday cheer. This picture was taken last year when she came to New Hampshire for a visit.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIE!

Steve's Blue Slashed Squares

 

I "met" Steve because he commented on a blog post I wrote some years ago. Steve lives in Alaska. We've talked several times on the phone since them. Sometime last year he asked me if I had a suggestion to make a fairly quick quilt (I think). Immediately I suggested my Slashed Squares. It's a quilt that has a lot of possibilities and goes together really quick.

Steve made the quilt for a friend who was about to retire, and move across the country to warmer climes. The fabrics include many with references to cold, snow and Alaska.

"It's funny," he said to me the last time we talked, "two fabrics you think are of a different value when you look at them, suddenly look almost the same when you look at a photograph of them. And then when you at the real thing again, you SEE that difference."

"Yeah," I sighed. "It's weird how that works. I'll think I have a layout PERFECT, and then I'll take a picture, and as I walk out of the studio, I look at the picture I just took and realize there is more work in front of me. 

"It happens to all of us."

Remember though, all of you who are reading, that the recipient of a gift does not care about things like that, because as we all know, there is no better gift that a quilt that represents your love.

I think the quilt is BEAUTIFUL! Well done, Steve!

The Quilt for My Friend P

 

This is the wrong side of the top of the quilt I am making for my friend P.

This is the backing for the quilt. At first I thought it was too pretty bluish but...

then I set the quilt down on it and it is pretty clear this is going to be beyond perfect. P is thrilled about the quilt.

Her dad died last week, so she's blue, as you can well imagine. He may have been over 90 and a bit of a tyrant, but he was still her dad, and she's going to miss him. Send a prayer in her direction if you can; she could really use it.

This is a Slashed Squares quilt, and it's not hard to make. You can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

The Quilt for P

 

These are the first pass blocks I made for my friend P's quilt. "OH," she texted me when I sent her this picture, "this is so pretty."

"Wait!" I texted back, "I haven't cut them up yet."
 

"Why would you cut them up?" she wanted to know.

I quickly assembled some blocks on the wall and sent the photo.

"OHHH!"

 

Then I started placing the pieces on the design wall. P was having dinner with her DD and SIL and shared this picture with them. 

"Lynne, you have us all entranced watching this...." she texted.

Then, a pause..

"You are going to leave this to me in your will" her DD said..

"WELL I DUNNO..." I texted back, "You may wear it out first!!"

And so it went.

An hour and a half later, I had this, and it was just the first pass. "Here you go, I think I know where this is going, but I'll figure it out tomorrow. Good night!"

"Gosh this is so fabulous," P texted me. "I love it!"  I laughed. It was NOWHERE NEAR what I wanted.

The next afternoon, twenty-four iterations later, I had this. "It might be IT," I wrote to P, but it will probably change before I sew it together." (It did, at least three times.)

"I love the way the birds fly in and out and the colors carry you through it," P told me when we talked on the phone later.

It's one thing to make a quilt for somebody. It's another thing when they get it.

I am sewing the blocks together and should finish the top in a day or two.

 

The Slashed Squares tutorial is one of my most popular tutes. It is easy to make, and goes together very quickly. If you are interested, you can get it at my Etsy shop here. It's an instant download, and you can get started right away. It works with scraps too. P's quilt isn't a scrap quilt, but it was made with what I have in my stash.

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.

Three Quilts for March

 I like making quilts, and when I figured out I could make a table quilt, I decided to make one for each month of the year. (I love bowls, too, and this gives me an excuse to have a spiffy bowl for each quilt.)

March is my least favorite month of the year. It's usually grey and dull and blah and muddy. So black and white is a perfect quilt for March. This is Terrazzo, a Slashed Squares quilt. Readers ask if I really eat on the quilts. I do, but I use a placemat. You can see one at my place in the photo above. It's black and white and pink. (my pal Julie made me a set.)

I decided to show off some other quilts this month. So I changed the one that lives on the back of the couch. Julie made this one too. It's called Hidden Potential, and it's made from my dud letters. About ten years ago when I was planning a class on free pieced letters, Julie suggested I send her my duds. "Just because YOU can't use them doesn't mean they are bad," she wrote, "and your students need to know that too."

Julie sent me this quilt for my birthday a while back. I love black and white and colors. It's cold here at night in winter, so I like to have an extra quilt on the bed. I figured this one was March-ish too. What's funny, is Julie also made the quilt underneath, the one that has lived on my bed since I got it, and if that isn't a compliment, I don't know what is.

Goose Rocks Beach Goes Home

 

I gave Goose Rocks Beach to the CEO. He's been wrestling with dramatic changes over the last few months, and I know he's been stressing out big time. I wanted him to know how deeply I appreciate the concern he has had for his employees, keeping them safe. (Read: allowing me to work from home.)

I told him that if ANYBODY at the company needed a hug it was him. I said I couldn't give him a hug, but I had something even better. Then I pulled out the quilt, and my normally loquacious boss was at a loss for words. To say the gift of a quilt was a surprise was a dramatic understatement. He thought the colors were perfect. He loved the title and knew where Goose Rocks Beach was, as he loves that part of the country, and vacations near there every year.

He loved the quilt, but was so happy to have the story of the quilt to go along with it. The story was a synopsis of how the quilt came to be, from the inspiration photograph (another colleague) to the choosing of fabrics, arrangement of blocks, quilting, QA testing by Millie and the binding. When I got home later I added the photo above at the end and added more details.

I also gave him a copy of the Slashed Squares tutorial and every photograph I took of the quilt from start to finish. Hey, he's the CEO of a manufacturing company. This is a guy who likes to know how things get made.

Here's part of the thank you note he sent later:

"Hey Lynne,

I am so blown away!

I feel very special today, believe me, to have my own Goose Rocks Beach masterpiece! ... I am deeply touched and am deeply grateful.... Goose Rocks Beach, well, Rocks!"

I am equally happy. THIS is why we make quilts!

Goose Rocks Beach is Done!

 

I've finished the Goose Rocks Beach quilt. The weather is supposed to be lousy the next few days, so there won't be any outside beauty shots. After I took these pictures, I ran the quilt through the washing machine to make it soft and cuddly.

I'll be gifting this quilt in the next few days, so I created a power point document about how the quilt came to be. I'll give this with the quilt so the recipient will know how the quilt came to be.

This is a Slashed Squares quilt, and if you want to make one, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away.

Binding Goose Rocks Beach

 

I've attached the binding to the Goose Rocks Beach quilt and now I'm joining the ends.

Here I have pinned the binding to the front for sewing down.

And here I am sewing the binding. The quilt will be going to somebody special as soon as it is finished. It will be a surprise, so I am excited about it.

Here is the whole quilt, so you can see it. (This photo was taken before I added the binding.)

Goose Rocks Beach is a Slashed Squares quilt, and it's really easy to make. You can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.

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.

Goose Rocks Beach

The brown, blue and cream/white Slashed Squares flimsy is complete, and it is now called Goose Rocks Beach. 

Thanks to the readers  who suggested names. Earth and Sky were clearly elements, but music and food just didn't do it for me. Ann got me in the right direction when she suggested Maine. So I opened Google Maps, and found Ogunquit Maine (an easy drive from my house), and scrolled north along the coast, looking for any name that struck me. Goose Rocks Beach is an actual place in Maine, just north of Kennebunkport.

If you want to make a Slashed Squares quilt, you can get my tutorial here, on my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away. You can see more pictures of these quilts here.

Quick Quick Quick

I keep forgetting how quickly this quilt goes together. I've got all the blocks sewn together and the bottom two rows are sewn, but they aren't sewn to each other just yet.

I need a title for this. This blue brown white or cream combination is very popular because it is so soothing, and it strikes me as out-of-doors, but it isn't beach-y.

If you want to make this quilt, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

It's the Little Things

One of the things I like best about the Slashed Squares quilt is the way the center block can really be made to stand out.

Here are some of my favorites.

When I am arranging the blocks of my Slashed Squares quilts, I always try to make interesting centers like this.

Sometimes the values of the blocks don't exactly cooperate the way I'd like them to, so I have to find a way to make them look good, yet not "read" as a too dark "blob."

Now it is time for me to sew this together.


If you want to see more of my Slashed Squares quilt, click here.

If you want to make a Slashed Squares quilt of your own, click here for my tutorial, on sale at my Etsy shop.



==

Shuffle Along

As I have said before, just getting all your blocks up on the design wall is only a start.

I got up Sunday morning and went into the studio to look at what I had put up on the design wall. I didn't like the areas where dark values spread across two or three blocks. The first thing was to move those around. I try to make sure there aren't any "blobs" of areas of too much dark, or "holes" of too much light.

I also want to make sure the blues and the browns were evenly distributed throughout the quilt. I also try to avoid the same print to close to itself in adjacent blocks. It can't always be helped, but I do try.

This is what I have after an awful lot of tinkering.



If you want to make a Slashed Squares quilt, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. And if you want to see more Slashed Squares quilts, you can see some here.

Eighteen and Cut!

After I made 18 blocks, I decided I had enough.

After braving the crowds at the grocery store, pharmacy and gas station (a snowstorm was due to hit about 5 PM and everybody wanted to get their shopping done and be back home before it started), I got home put a chicken in the oven to roast, went into the studio and started cutting up the blocks.

After dinner I went into the studio, turned on PBS and "watched" Howard's End and Sanditon on Masterpiece Theatre while I rearranged the pieces and set the blocks up on the design wall. These aren't sewn together. In the top photo there are three blues that touch each other where four blocks meet. That will change. That has already changed, as you can see in the second photo.

This layout is by no means set. The pieces in the rearranged blocks aren't even sewn together. The block in the upper left is too dark and the one in the lower right is too light. Now the fun will really begin, however this gives me a good idea of what it will look like and I am already happy with it


If you want to make a Slashed Squares quilt, you can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. You can see other photos of these quilts here.

Sweet Sixteen

I now have sixteen basic blocks. I want more so I'll have more variety, so I'm not done quite yet.

I've had a fat quarter of that center fabric for at least a dozen years. It isn't what you think of when you think of brown, but I think it fits in.

I love this brown outer fabric. I bought some of it for a quilt I made a couple of years ago, and then I saw the bolt on the sale rack later. Had to take more of that home!

Fabric about making stuff. That was a no-brainer!

You can see where this is going here, where I have lots of pictures of my Slashed Squares quilts, and if you want the tutorial for these quilts, you can get it here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.

I'm excited about the way this is turning out.

(Just a reminder that you can click the photos and then click again for more detail)

Primo & Segundo

Here is the batch of blocks I started yesterday for the new Slashed Squares quilt. (You can get the tutorial here.)

And here are some pairs I have planned for the next batch.

Yes, those are dinos. In a quilt about light blue, brown and creamish, that fabric fits. When orange gets dark it turns brown, so the fabric is perfect for this quilt. Plus it's one more thing viewers will get to discover.

And speaking of...

So you like this blue on white fabric?  Think again.

It is fussy cut from fabric that has different bands of colors. Don't look at your fabric for what it IS, look at it for WHAT ELSE it can be!