From Jelly Rolls to Layer Cakes - this is making me hungry! A Layer Cake is a stack of 10" squares in a specific fabric collection. This way you can get just a taste of all the fabrics in a large collection without having to break the bank! Let me show you what I mean. Here is a photo of a stack of 10" squares of Michael Miller's Marble collection. They sent me a layer cake. Yum, yum! Layer Cake of Marble - forty-two 10" squares Here's a set from Benartex using their Essence of Pearl Collection. Layer Cake squares from Essence of Pearl  I used these as the basis for my Big Block Hexagon quilt. I first removed a 2.5" strip from each 10" square. I had a plan! And aren't these lovely strips? Yes, I have a plan for these, too. I used the 7.5" x 10" rectangles as the basis for my Big Block Hexagons class. I shared about this a few years ago. I cut large hexagons from each of these rectangles. Here's the quilt, Big Block Hexagons, that I mad...

Say what? Bubbles? Hexagons? Together? Yes, and we use Layer Cakes and Jelly Rolls! Sounds very yummy, doesn't it? You can do a lot with half-hexagons. Actually, I think anything with a 60 degree baseline is magic! I have seen a variety of quilts on Pinterest that use this concept. I had this first quilt published in 1997, and I wasn't the first person to do this. There is nothing new under the sun, right? Yes, 1997! Published in Quilt Magazine What if the neighboring half-hexagons are the same color?  My Bubbles and Hexagons  quilt was made using 2-1/2" strips (can you say Jelly Rolls?) Bubbles and Hexagons I sell the  hard copy pattern  with a 2-1/2" acrylic template for $13 in my Etsy store. Check it out. The following is a photo of that template which works with 2-1/2" strips. I had a stack of chocolate themed layer cake squares (10") that I used for a workshop sample. I finished it and donated it to my local guild's charity endeavors. Some child is ...

Contest is over and winner is chosen! We all have them: Jelly Rolls, Charm Squares, Layer Cakes. But after the impulse buy, we sometimes are in a quandary about what to do with them. I selected a stack of 10" squares (a Layer Cake) from the Social Butterfly collection. I wanted to revisit my Bubbles pattern. Here's a peek at the fabrics. 10" squares of Social Butterfly (42) I first made this Bubbles Quilt in 1996 using a small half-hexagon template and some 2" strips. These fabrics are SO old, but they worked! I named it Half Hexagon Jewel. Half Hexagon Jewel Let me show you what I did with the Social Butterfly 10" squares. Many of the prints are directional. We don't want any dive bombing butterflies now, do we? I cut a 1" strip off one side of my 10" squares. That's because I am aiming for two 4-1/2" x 10" rectangles from each square. 42 strips 1" x 10" Then I cut two 4-1/2" x 10" strips fro...

I designed and sewed this quilt more than 10 years ago, right when those 10" stack of squares began hitting the quilt store shelves. It is part of my Magic Stack series and I thought I would feature some of these now and then on my blog. This first quilt (54" x 64") is a bit larger than the pattern size. The quilt in my Craftsy pattern is 52" x 62". Stained Glass Pickup Sticks I made this using 10-1/2" squares cut from batiks, but my pattern has been rewritten for 10" squares. This is so easy! I taught this as a workshop for a few years; let me show you a few of my other quilts. This 8 block table runner was our project for a half-day workshop. Students could expand their quilts with more squares. 8 Block Table Runner  Then, I took a stack of some Asian inspired prints from Blank Quilting, and created this 16 block quilt. Don't you just love those thin black strips - looks like stained glass, doesn't it? 16 Block quilt cent...