Remember this one?

I said I wanted to make this design but with smaller blocks, so I decided to sort of kick myself into working on it, I scheduled myself to write about it. This sort of pushes me into making more progress than I might if I didn’t do that.

I need 144 blocks for this quilt top - all in 1” finished squares.

I was so taken with the look of this one in 2” and then 2.5” blocks, I was intrigued to try this in my smaller series. When I do these 1.5” series, I do them over a series of weeks or even months. I expect this one to take a while.

I started with making a bunch of strip sets like this.

I subcut these at 1.5”:

Once I had these all counted, I had 96 upon my initial cutting. Since I’m writing this a bit before the blog post, I’ll see if I can get 144 before this post goes live. Technically I need 288, but if I had 144, I’ll go on to the second row and start putting these blocks together. I will definitely get more excited about making these blocks when I can get started on them.

It’s quite slow to make these blocks, so anything I can do to encourage myself, I’ll try. I really want to make this one as I think it will be amazing and it will use a lot of my 1.5” strips I have in my bags.

I will need 144 for the one row - but really 288 as rows 8 and 1 are the same. However, once I get 144 little strip sets made and cut up, I will probably go on to the next set to make. The diagram is at the bottom of this post.

I mean seriously - 144 is a LOT.

But I have a couple of large bags of 1.5” already cut up strips, so I’m just pulling from them.

But this is tedious work. I can’t wait til get to where I will start to be able to make blocks. However, this is a project that I will probably make all the blocks first and then put the top together. Some of these quilts with little pieces get put together a bit at a time. We’ll see. I don’t want to start writing silly stuff and have to take it back. My plan currently is to make all 144 blocks and THEN put the top together.

*Impressionist Wreaths* in 1” finished squares

It is possible I could just make up some blocks and then more and then more. However, it seems to me to be more efficient to just focus on the same strip set until I get enough of them.

It can be confusing if try to make some of this row and some of that row.

I do keep a printout of the block on the wall over my sewing machine so I can keep looking at it. I tend to do that with whatever quilt I’m currently working on, by the way. When I finish that quilt, I remove the paper and put it away - or throw it away, depending.

This is what I’m going to be making, in case you’ve forgotten. I’ll try to put plenty of red in it. However that doesn’t mean every row and every strip set needs it. I’ve just noticed the quilt is much prettier with reds and yellows in it. It really brightens it up.

This WHOLE quilt is made up of this block.

Oh, and there is a free pattern on the website already for 2” squares. You can easily follow the layout but just use the size strips you want. In this case, I’m using my 1.5” strips.

I will write about this periodically. Since this one is a big project, I’ll share row by row just so I can keep myself encouraged and moving along.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this.

Oh - if you are wondering - what is my 1.5” series?

Here they are - it’s a pretty small series so far! When I add the ones I made in my Upcycled Blues and Upcycled Greens - it increases it quite a bit!