I actually showed the last top (#47) and mentioned that it was the end of my 2.5” squares. The reason that it was the end was because I had already made up these blocks, but not yet finished this quilt top.

Here is both a play on shade and simply using up those 2.5” squares.

At first when I worked with the idea in the program, I hadn’t worried about making the block shaded diagonally across the block from lightest to darkest.

But I decided to play around with it and see what I thought. At first I made them all the same direction - as in the lights up in the top right corner, but then I turned the blocks (there’s a nifty button you can click on the EQ program and they all change - do it 16 times and theoretically you have seen all the combinations). Anyway, when I saw this one, I liked it a lot.

What I discovered when making my blocks, however, was that I had significantly more lights than darks. I actually came back to the computer and redid my computerized block a bit as I was thinking I had more med/darks than I actually had.

I placed them in the top so that the lights faced each other to sort of form a “light center”. You certainly wouldn’t need to do this.

In this top, the pinwheels shine. That was the plan.

They also took a long time to make!

I knew I only had enough 2.5” squares to make 36 of these blocks, so I had to stop. But the top wasn’t quite big enough so I added the little section of HST that were leftover blocks from other things I had made in this series.

I didn’t really want to do it, but I wanted the quilt longer than 90” for tucking in. So I did. In an ideal world, I would have left it off, but I wanted to both use up some more of my leftovers AND make the top longer. The reason I’m not really thrilled with it has to do with the color - not the design. But, it’s okay - it will be at the bottom/top of the bed - the center will be the focus!

I was also “out” of that off white/cream that I used - it was a sheet I bought at the Salvation Army in Lilburn, GA - near one of our supporting churches. In fact, I had been able to get about 5 of them one time a while ago - this is the last of them. I had wanted to use it as the wider border, but I was out - so couldn’t do it.

At that point, I didn’t want to add a different off white/cream since I don’t have anything left that is very close, so I went with cutting up two of the recently discovered shirts - when I put my son and DiL’s things under the eaves - I decided it would have to do.

As far as how many I have left in this series. Well, I’m kind of afraid to say, but I did have high hopes to have it done by the end of January and now I have even higher hopes to have all the tops done by the end of February and would love to have all of them quilted by the end of March. So we’ll see. As of this writing I have 2 more tops in my sewing room, being worked on. That may be all. But maybe not.

I’ve got to take a few days off now and make that quilt for the pastor and his wife in Alaska. It’s going to be a simple one- the big squares are already cut out.

The pattern has been written (my elves) and it is on the free patterns page and on the upcycled blues page. We are now at 48 quilts/tops in this series. I’m kind of in shock, actually.

And that’s what I’ve been doing here in my sewing room - and on the computer, of course!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!