When I was a girl, we celebrated BOTH Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays. Now, we just give them a wink and a nod (maybe). Today I share a quilt pattern called Washington's Puzzle . Traditionally made using funky templates, I converted it using my Magic Stax© technique. I posted about this in 2017 using some Benartex fabrics. I came up with the idea in early 2000. Here is a set of 1/3 yard cuts I was sent to work with. They are truly color drenched! And if you stay with me, you can have the FREE PATTERN. Color Flow fabrics by Carol Bryer Fallert While many others have done something similar, mine is unique in that the number of patches in a block determines how many squares are in a stack. The stack gets cut ALL at the same time (make sure your rotary cutter has a new blade.) Also, my cutting is NOT RANDOM. All of my blocks in this series (15 different ones) are based on traditional blocks and a line drawing of them. 10-1/2" squares of  Color Flow I chose to update m...

No, not a Saltine! Not a Triscuit or a Graham or other crunchy bite sized snack. This is the traditional name of a block that is easy to make without templates. It's a workshop I've taught several times and I love the "aha" moments my students have. This is one of the quilts I made 20 years ago which was published in Quilt Magazine. I didn't have a decent photo of it until a few weeks ago when the person I gave it to asked me to put a rod pocket on the back so she could hang it. Doris loves red and black and didn't want to sit under it - she wanted to hang it so she could look at it! Red and Black Cracker Quilt: 51" x 60" Using my Magic Stax method, the blocks begin as 10-1/2" squares and end at 9-1/4" finished. That size doesn't matter because they are stitched one to another, tilting them back and forth. Here's an even better photo: Let's see two blocks from another quilt. These are from batiks and are very scrappy. Two Cracke...

You may remember this blog post from October 2019. I'm updating it with my finished quilt!  I received this bundle of 25 fat quarters from the Michael Miller  Tropical Batiks  collection in early 2019. I couldn't believe the motifs and the rich colors. Fat quarter bundle of  Tropical Batiks  by Michael Miller Oh. You want me to open it up and show you all the fabrics? I can do that! Tropical Batiks  in all their glory! I have worked with batiks for about 23 years and find that the simpler the pattern, the more the fabric gets to do the work. These are fat quarters and that challenges me to make the best use of the fabric. I developed a series of patterns in the early 2000s that I call Magic Stax. They all start with 10-1/2" squares and are stacked in a small pile and are cut at the same time (ie, stacks of 5 or 6 or 9). Then the patches are shuffled, swapped and stitched. I had several different quilts published in quilt magazines and decided to revisit one...