6/07/2013

Square in a Square Technique

I have been working with the Square in a Square ruler by Jodi Barrows.  It was a ruler I bought 15 years ago when I took a class. I had not used it since then. On April 10 I went with a friend to Jodi's lecture and trunk show at Quilted Memories in Montague, MI. She was touring Michigan talking about her new book and the Square in a Square technique and products. 

To make a long story short, I got out my ruler and began working with it again. I felt I understood the technique and ruler much better after the lecture. The projects I have done are pictured below. 
30" x 30" - I taught this as a class.


30" x 30" - I made this after the class
 and the floral burgundy fabric around the edges is going to be the backing fabric. 

42" x 42" - This was the class sample I taught from.
This is a table runner made as I demonstrated the technique for the class - 19" x 41"
Have any of you used the Square in a Square ruler?  If so, what do you think of the technique? 

Lastly, the other day I sent photos of one of my EQ projects that I finished to the EQ gallery (click here to view it in the gallery)

It is a quilted pool table cover that I made per my husband's request. We were traveling in the Upper Pennisula of Michigan a few summers ago when we stopped at a quilt store in Paradise. Normally he doesn't go in quilt stores, but this one had a very woodsy theme so he came in. On the wall were a number of quilt samples. The panel in the middle of one caught his eye and he asked me if I could use it as the center of a quilt for his pool table. I said no problem (yeh!) and we bought it. It did take a year and a half to get it from the EQ design stage to the final quilt top, then I waited a few more months for the longarm quilter to finish it. It is very colorful and he likes it. And now that it is on the pool table, I no longer use it to lay out quilt blocks for sewing, I just can't bring myself to cover it up. 


Here it is on the carpet to show the pattern. The colors in this photo are more exact than those colors in the photo below. 
And below, it is on the pool table.