It’s Cool to Be Square

Back in March when Carol announced this blog hop I thought I’d be going back to school after just two weeks, but I’d started using some scrap squares I’d started to sew together as leaders and enders, so I knew I’d have at least one project.  I had seen two different blocks I’d saved to try,  it both called for 2.5 inch squares.  I prefer sewing bigger pieces so I modified them to match the squared square I wanted to sew.  Fast forward to the school being closed and starting online learning and I was so happy for those four patches, because I could get the stress relief of sewing, without having to put too much thought into what I was doing.

My quilt group has a two community projects that were one of the big reasons I decided to join.  Back in 2017 when I was invited to a meeting I knew I wanted to have more quilting friends that I could learn from and be inspired by, but I was nervous that the members would be far more skilled than me, or that they’d be quilt police.  When I went to the first meeting they talked about the quilts they were giving to fire victims in the county and I knew this was going to be a good group for me.  One of my aunts had lost her home to a fire over Thanksgiving when I was in college, so it was something that really struck a chord with me.  Right around the time we went into quarantine one of the other officers was approached about throw quilts for dialysis patients, once again, it was a chase that is near and dear to me, as my Gram was on dialysis for several years and I saw what it did to her.  For both of these community projects, the group supplies batting and backing.  One of the older ladies can’t cut anymore but she really enjoys tying the quilts, so these tops will likely be given to her to finish.  As one of the officers I also have a big box of fabric that was donated to the group, so when I finished the first scrap square quilt and was still experiencing so much uncertainty about the plans for the rest of the school year I decided to pull charm packs from the donated fabrics and see what I could do with them.  Once again sewing squares together and then making 4 patches was therapeutic.
The first pattern I wanted to try was Pat Sloan’s free Traffic Jam Pattern.  She’s released another version with other sizes recently.  I ended up making 3 quilts using this one.

Then I decided I wanted to try Samelia’s Mum’s Twirling at the Disco again this was designed for 2.5  in squares, so I’ve been calling it my big disco party.  In my mind 9 blocks would be a king size quilt.  It turned out that 9 blocks was way bigger than I figured (it’s a good thing I teach social studies and not math!) I would up getting 2 quilts from 10 blocks.  I was planning to take these pictures when we were out this past weekend, but I forgot them and had to make do with hanging them on the front porch railing so the secondary design doesn’t show as well as I’d hoped.

There are still more charm blocks in the donated fabric, but I’ve started working on some other projects now that I found a routine with school and it is wrapping up for the year.  However after reading some of the other posts I may be inspired to dig into another set of charm squares, or maybe I’ll brave the 2.5 inch squares the patterns actually call for. Check our all the other participating bloggers:

May 18

Creatin' in the Sticks

Life in the Scrapatch

Day Brook Designs

Songbird Designs

The Darling Dogwood

Kathleen McMusing

Quilting Gail

May 19

MooseStashQuilting

Beaquilter

Quilt In A Not-Shell

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Seams To Be Sew

Daughters of Dorinda

Kathy's Kwilts and More

May 20

Ms P Designs USA

Selina Quilts

Karen's Korner

Just Because Quilts

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Sew Many Yarns

May 21

Scrapdash

Websterquilt

Quilt Schmilt

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

May 22

Just Let Me Quilt

Vroomans Quilts

Patchouli Moon Studio

Den syende himmel

Quilt Fabrication

Samelia's Mum

Wings of Promise