When I was in Florida, helping Rachael in February and March, I saw that we were working with a lot of tropical colored fabrics.

Naturally I liked them. Ok, ok. I just like fabric. If they had been mountain themed or animals, or fish, or whatever, I’d have liked them.

But as I worked with them, there were times that there were small pieces that were too small to be used for what we were doing (making fat quarters, for instance). I kept those pieces and eventually trimmed them up into 2.5” strips.

I decided to go ahead and make this simple Checkerboard top. It is made from a few different white on white fabrics combined with these various tropical colored leftovers. It was reminiscent of this quilt I made shown to the right.

I had thought it would be small at first.

But it kept getting bigger and bigger. :) I guess I have that problem no matter where I am. It ended up being about 80”x100”, I think (78”x94”). As it was, I called it quits - as I did have more strips so I could have made it larger! It was almost funny - as I was originally aiming for about a 55”x75” quilt. I guess I failed at that.

Here it is.

When I made this top, all I did was strip piece those 2.5” strips - white/tropical/white/tropical. I made up a bunch of those and then mixed and matched those 4 pieces of 2.5” squares.

This made 8.5” blocks.

I then put them together to make this top. This quilt is made up of 80 of those 16 patch blocks.

At first I wanted to make that border like I made in the one shown above - but decided not to try since my selection of fabrics were all pretty much all medium and dark values - no lights…so it would have been too difficult since I didn’t have a lot of fabrics to work with (as scraps!) - since that was the point of this top.

So, instead I opted to find a nice, gloriously beautiful and WILD fabric for the border.

I just wanted to show people that even a simple checkerboard quilt is still pretty. Things don’t always have to be so complicated! I used 3 or 4 different white on white fabrics as the white.

I left the top in Florida to be quilted. When I see it after it is finished, I’ll be sure to share it with you. The long-armers were incredibly busy and we told them there was no hurry so it maybe May or June before I see it. We’ll see. It certainly isn’t high priority.

But…it’s just a reminder - it’s okay to make simple. Perfectly fine.

Oh wait - here’s probably the first simple checkerboard I made - draped over the sofa at the church building.

Have a great day wherever you are reading!

Thanks for coming along with me.

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

Feel free to browse the site.