Stained Glass Pickup Sticks

 I designed this technique about 20 years ago. It's part of my Magic Stax bundle of patterns. What I forgot was that I made SO MANY quilts (well, actually 5).

Here's my original quilt which was made with a stack of 10-1/2" squares of batiks. I call it Stained Glass Pickup Stix. It appeared in a quilting magazine around 2007. And also in my 2014 Wall Calendar of Quilts.

Stained Glass Pickup Stix: 54" x 64"

Here's my most recent one using some batiks from Michael Miller. I had just enough of the black print insert fabric - whew!

Pickup Stix using Tropical Batiks by Michael Miller

Stacks of squares are cut - not randomly, but with a plan. Make 2 cuts in a stack of 4 fabrics and then shuffle them. Each block is made from those 4 patches.

Stacks of squares cut and shuffled

Then the thin "stained glass" strips are added and then trimmed.

I made one with some lovely prints in blues and greens. A friend of mine quilted it and it was sold at my local quilt guild's Winter auction.

Pickup Stix in the June Bug Collection

Then I made one using some gorgeous Asian inspired prints. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of it quilted!

Asian inspired prints

And here's one made by my editor friend, using my pattern for Northcott Fabrics.

Pickup Stix by Jean Ann Wright, for Northcott Fabrics

When I taught this 14 years ago, I made up kits for my students for making table runners. Here's one of my class samples:

So, as you can see, sometimes there's a pattern that works with just about any "personality" of fabrics. Check out my Etsy pattern to see more images.