Watermelon Squares

Remember when I stopped by Julie's shop last week?  She had a box of Sugar & Spice scraps sitting on her table, and she let me poke through it in search of bits for my scrappy quilt.  After watching me take scraps out, look at the pile in my hand, and then sadly put some back in (repeat for about 15 minutes), she finally told me to take whatever I wanted because she was giving the rest to the guild charity group.  I jumped on that one!  I oh-so-slyly suggested that I should just take the whole box, and then make a charity quilt with the extras.  She probably saw plenty of flaws with that, but she is too nice to say no.

By the time I got home I was feeling bad about being so greedy.  I figured that if I got to work right away on the charity quilt, I would stop feeling guilty.  Right?  Right.

Sugar and Spice in Green Colorway via Fabricworm

The box had a bunch of 3.5" and 4" pre-cut squares in the green/pink colorway, so I pulled those out.  I almost never use a single line of fabrics, mostly because picking fabrics is my favorite part of the quilting process.  So, of course I turned to my stash to supplement the line.  I am working on paying attention to values, so I added some darker pinks and greens along with some more white.
 
Then I virtually hit up the Moda bake shop because I knew it would be a good place to find patterns for using pre-cut squares.  I was stumped on what to do with a mix of 4" and 3.5" squares, though.  Just cutting the 4" squares down to 3.5" would be "wasting fabric."

When I saw this pattern, with a mix of 4-patches and whole squares, I knew I was onto something.  Obviously, cutting 4" squares apart and then sewing them back together in a 3.5" square - that is not wasting fabric. That is making a QUILT.

Four Squared quilt from Aunt Polly's Porch via the Moda Bake Shop

I glanced at that picture and my brain started a-goin'.  I slapped my laptop shut* and headed for the sewing table, 'cause that's how I roll.

Which is to say, I roll with the "-ish."  That's -ish like square-ish and twelve inch-ish, not like is-sue.  Kelly is on a mission teaching all of our local guild members to be a little more "-ish."  She's converting us, one person at a time.  We are still working on Adrianne.  Oh, Adrianne.  *sigh*  She might be a lost cause.

In my version, instead of 16-patches, the larger blocks are 4-patches that sometimes have one or more mini-4-patches within them.  That's my natural genius shining.  Clearly it's not because I didn't so much as glance at the instructions.  Or because I didn't have enough of the larger squares to make 16-patches work.

Which brings us to... blocks all sewed up:

And looking good on the design wall:

 *Note to husband:  Of course I didn't literally "slap" it shut.  I am very careful with my belongings.  I would never slap a laptop.  Unless it deserved it.