I love a Windmill block, and this scrappy I Spy version comes together quickly. The blocks finish at 16″ and the quilt is 52″ x 52″.
It can be tricky to get novelty fabrics to play together nicely. I think a lot of I Spy quilts look pretty chaotic.
I’ve been playing with rectangles I call “bricks” for a few years now, and this design began when I experimented with a light-to-dark progression of bricks across the quilt.
I still love this original idea and will likely create a quilt from it. One of the best things about bricks is that once you have an idea, it can be made with any size of brick that you like. I think this would be lovely in bricks cut 2″ x 3.5″. (A brick in my world always finishes twice as long as wide.) They’d finish 1.5″ x 3″.
That’s when I saw rooftops! If I rotated them, I could create a neighborhood made from Flying Geese and bricks. And if I maintained the colorwash, it could suggest a sunrise.
Here’s one of my Electric Quilt drawings:
And here is a flat shot of the actual quilt:
There was Suburb Sunrise. And Sunrise Over Sterling. Which morphed to Sunrise Over Salem. And then the fine folks at American Patchwork & Quilting came up with Break of Dawn, which I like much better. Read more about the issue at that link—there is a lot of good stuff!
You’ll find the issue on newsstands through August 20 or you can buy it online here. I’m taking the quilt with me to Maine this week for Maine Quilts, where I’m sharing my trunk show called Make Extraordinary Scrap Quilts.
I’m also teaching some workshops:
Strange Bedfellows: Fabric Savvy Playshop has all my best tips and tricks for using fabric effectively.
Bound for Glory: Make the edges of your quilt fabulous!
StarQuar Scrap Quilts: The simplest technique ever results in unlimited quilt designs from scraps.
Tango: Fun, fast, easy—all the way to a dynamite finish!
I’ll add new content each week and I hope you’ll visit often. There is so much to learn about being fabric savvy!
Spring is nearly over in that part of Texas and it was almost hot with high humidity. My hostess Elizabeth took me to Houston Botanical Garden where things are very much in progress, beautiful nonetheless.
This cactus was so happy—it was covered in new growth.
So I recently thrifted Simple Strategies for Scrap Quilts by Lynn Roddy Brown. I’ve known of Lynn for years and met her briefly once when she contributed to Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks. She’s a maker of scrap quilts like I am, and she’s written several books on the topic.
As soon as I started reading Lynn’s introduction called “Understanding Scrap Quilts,” I wanted to hug her. She was saying all the things I know to be true and have been trying to communicate to my own students. She was covering all the bases and doing it well.
I recorded it on Feb 2 and today I’ve made it available to everyone through Thursday, March 13. It lasts about an hour and I hope you’ll have a look.
I speak and teach for quilt guilds across the US and Canada but I want to keep widening that circle. I love being with quilters both in person and online. If you’re in a quilt group anywhere in the world and you enjoy the trunk show, please share my name with your leaders. I’d love to bring my scrappy fun to your neck of the woods!
Access the handout for this trunk show here.
When I watched this back, I made a mental note to move some of the best samplers toward the beginning. So please don’t despair at the duds I show early. It gets better!!
Now sit back, relax and enjoy. 🍿
I appreciate it when quilters are willing to try something new. Here is some of their work.
Asterisk is a design by Karen Griska that I teach with her permission. It’s such a great block that looks hard but sews easy. It doesn’t get any better than that!
A nasty stomach virus is making its way through the family of two adults and four children.
We decided late last night that I should postpone my visit. While I’m bummed not to see them, there’s an up side:
I’ve been brainstorming all night (when I should have been sleeping) about how to spend the time. Here are some of the things I want to do.
I’m giving a talk on bricks, which are one of my favorite shapes. There is so much you can do with them!
And here’s another brick quilt, just for fun.