scrappy spools

I've been wanting to make this spool quilt forever. The pattern I intended to follow was for larger blocks, but after sewing along with Jo's Quilt Square Quilt Along for the past few months, I'm really loving these itty bitty quilts. About the same time I found my inspiration for this quilt, my best friend made one with the same exact construction and different color placement. Her blocks were 12" square and she had nothing but trouble with it. I think that's part of the reason I took so long to start my own.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that I could use the Companion Angle ruler and try a block with some of the 1 1/2" strips from my log cabin box.



I sewed two strips together and pressed them, then cut them into quarter square triangles. I never knew I needed a Companion Angle until I bought it for Orca Bay. Now I'm finding all sorts of things to do with it!



You wind up with four triangles...



And sew them together to make a spool.



Using the 1 1/2" strips made a 4" finished block, which is larger than I wanted, because I'm a bit nuts that way, so I tried it again with 1" strips. That gave me a 2" finished block. I suppose I could have read the numbers printed right there on the ruler and figured that out without the first test block, but what's the fun in that?



Now I'm debating how many blocks I want to make. A 16x24" quilt sounds nice, but that would take scary lot of cute little blocks.... To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times.