Wednesday 20 February 2008

Using up a big box of little squares

Since Christmas, I've been sewing two-inch squares together. I "inherited" a box of thousands of squares from my mother's studio. About 20 years ago, she cut 2 inch strips off everything in her stash and made a log cabin using values, not colours. The rest she cut into 2 inch squares to make a water colour quilt. After years of not her getting to the water colour, I took the box home with me and started making this double four-patch out of darks and lights.

Above, it is laid out unsewn on my bed, and the borders of my handquilted Amish square within a square quilt (made by my mother for our wedding) are peeking out. You can see there are many, many colours in the dark squares. I also found a pile of 3 1/2 inch squares in a dark print that I used for the bigger four patch. The only squares I cut in this whole double quilt were the neutral 3 1/2 inches and some light 2 inches when I ran out. I've used up about 1,200 little squares for this project.


After that, I still had many, many squares left, so I sewed together the medium pinks and blues. This time I had to cut the bigger squares, again from my mother's stash. Right now she's looking for sashing so I can make this a crib size quilt.

This has been fun -- mindless sewing and no cutting. The biggest challenge has been finding coordinating fabrics from the 1980s and 1990s to match the busy prints in the squares. And I'm determined not to buy any new yardage to use up this old fabric.

Stay tuned for more 2 inch square projects. there's hundreds left, mostly in busy florals. Those may be a challenge.

One question: I uploaded both of these photos exactly the same way and with the same instructions, but only the second one enlarges when you click on it. Any suggestions?

2 comments:

Donna said...

love your squares -- I've been sewing squares into HST for a while now, all without a plan, so understand how you could just "have a bunch"...

In terms of the picture i wonder if the picture files on your computer, which you uploaded, were different sizes -- that is the picture that wont enlarge, is it already about as detailed as the one you uploaded, whereas the other isn't? Just a thought...

Peg - Happy In Quilting said...

You have done a great job with all those little squares...very impressive...

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