New Pattern: Splitting Squares

I am so, so happy with this quilt!

Splitting Squares, a fat quarter-friendly pattern
by Canuck Quilter Designs

While I was shuffling the blocks around on the design wall, I seriously considered abandoning this project.  (My kids would say I always say that about every quilt, but they are wrong.  I only say it about 25% of the time.)  Still, I pushed through and now I'm seriously considering whether I'll actually ship this quilt off to my daughter as planned, or if it will live on my couch for a little while first. 

Want some closeups of the quilting?

I originally planned to quilt only straight lines with the walking foot, stitching in the ditch along the skinny strips and extending those lines across the large squares and rectangles.  Circles popped into my head before I could execute that, so I tossed a few in after auditioning placement with cut out paper circles.

These looked a bit lost, so that was my cue to enlarge the circles, but I now had general an idea of where to center each one.  My plan was to quilt the circles using ruler templates and my machine's ruler foot, but my machine was not having it.  I thought it was fixed.  Despite many spa days for cleaning and maintenance and adjustments, my sewing machine has decided to skip stitches when I set it for ruler quilting.  It used to be just fine for ruler quilting, but now that's an exercise in frustration.

While I moaned about this to my husband and complained I didn't want to stitch this many circles with the walking foot, turning and turning and turning the quilt, he joked about having to hand quilt them instead.  Well, he was joking, but I was inspired!  Big stitch would be faster than tradional small stitches, right?  I happened to have a spool of green embroidry floss kicking around.  Not sure why I had it, since I don't do embroidery, but it was lovely green that would go perfectly with this quilt's colours.  Using a larger needle to accommodate the two strands of embroidery floss was a bit of an adjustment compared to the usual dainty betweeens quilting needles, but I got the hang of it.

I did end up quilting some of the circles by machine with a walking foot, but I love the surprise big stitch accents too.

I really like the mix of circles and straight lines.

I really, really had fun making this one, from the piecing to the quilting (with the exception of all the block shuffling).  I enjoy all the quilts I make, but somehow this one really inspired me and cheered me up.

Writing the pattern was a little more challenging.  I knew the cutting and piecing was easy, but making sure my words and illustrations didn't muddle things was a bit less joyful.  Thanks to Pat, Ronda, Donna and Kathi for testing the block instructions for me on a short timeline.

The pattern release is a week later than I anticipated because I wasn't happy with my original pattern cover.  I had not planned to use this version of the quilt on the cover, but I wasn't happy with what I had either.  The pattern cover really does make a difference to a pattern's success, so I delayed the release until I could sort that out.  Once I finished quilting this one, I knew it would go on the cover after all.

New pattern by Canuck Quilter Designs

Splitting Squares is a fat quarter pattern.  Each FQ yields the main color of one block and the accent strips of another, so it's really easy to choose fabric.  Just pick out as many cooordinating (or not!) FQ as you need for the size quilt you want.  No sashing or backgrounds to choose!  You will need to choose border and binding.

Besides being quick and easy, this is a very versatile pattern.  Not into bright colours?  No problem.  I originally designed the quilt in the monochrome colour schemes below.  

Splitting Squares using one "French Press" fat quarter bundle
from White Owl Textiles for Lumin Fabrics
(shipping to stores in March 2026)

Splitting Squares using one "Oceanside" fat quarter bundle
from White Owl Textiles for Lumin Fabrics
(shipping to stores in March 2026)

Looking for a holiday themed quilt?  This patterns delivers that too. Just choose appropriate colors or prints, like in the Halloween and Christmas colours in these two mockups.

Splitting Squares using one "Ghost Town" fat quarter bundle
from White Owl Textiles for Lumin Fabrics
(shipping to stores in March 2026)

Splitting Squares using one "Yule Love This" fat quarter bundle
from White Owl Textiles for Lumin Fabrics
(shipping to stores in March 2026)

The pattern is now available in my Etsy shop as a PDF download.  If you prefer a printed version, please ask your favourite quilt shop to order one for you.

I'm curious?  What fabrics would you use for this design and how would you quilt it?  Leave a comment below!

Happpy quilting,

Joanne

Pattern meets fabric: Boxed Kisses

My newest Christmas quilt is almost finished.

I know!  It's only September, but hear me out!

These Christmas fat qarters have been sitting on my shelf for eight years waiting for the right project.  I considered many different patterns for them over the years but they all required more coordinating yardage than I had.  I tried to find other fabrics to coordinate, but nothing looked quite right.

I designed Boxed Kisses a couple of years ago to use 1/4 yard cuts OR fat quarters.  I don't know why I didn't think until now to check if the bit of yardage I had to coordinate with my Christmas bundle would be enough to make Boxed Kisses.  There was just enough.  Happy dance!  I guess this quilt was meant to be.

Most of the quilts I make these days are test/sample quilts.  It was such a joy to relax and just follow a finished pattern this  time.  I haven't made anything this quicklky in ages.  Here's the timeline in photos.

August 1

Select 12 fat quarters from the bundle. 

Run all the fabric through te washer and dryer.

Press, press, press.

Start cutting.

August 2

Finish cutting.  Admire pretty stack of parts.

Piece units assembly-line style.

August 3

Lay out units to figure out
which fabric to pair in blocks

Remove some parts to start sewing.
Wonder if what's left has some design possibilities.

Focus on this quilt.  Assemble blocks.

August 4

Sew blocks together.

August 6

Add borders and audition binding fabric.

That's where things stand a month later.  Obviously I need to quilt the quilt before I can sew on the binding.  I've been distracted by non-sewing tasks and the insomnia quilt but Boxed Kisses:  Christmas Edition is next in line for quiting.

This fabric and this pattern were just meant to meet.  I'm tickled that 8 years ago, years before I designed this pattern,  I bought just enough of the cream, green and red yardage to pair with the fat quarters to make Boxed Kisses.  It's even more astonishing when you consider hat I very, very rarely buy fabric without a specific quilt in mind.

I'd love to hear about your fabric + pattern perfect pairings.  Tell me about them in the comments!

Happy quilting,

Joanne

Pattern available in my Etsy shop.

New work in progress - Name TBA

I've been busy, just not blogging. I've been thinking about it frequently, thoughts like "ooh, I should blog about that!", yet it's been over a month since I shared anything here.  I have things to share, I just get sidetracked on my way to the computer.

Here's one of the distractions, but also one of the things I meant to blog about.

Halloween Expressions from Riley Blake Designs

Pretty, right?  It's a bright happy bundle.  It followed me home from the quilt shop a few days after I had an insomniac designing session.  

I received a call for quilt design submissions, with a particular request for precut-friendly patterns, including FQ-friendly ones.  When a thought struck me at 3:00 am as I failed to fall asleep, I got up, started up EQ8, and played.  I finally got drowsy, so I went back to bed and fully expected to discard the design when I woke up.

Huh.  I didn't hate it in the morning.  In fact I was really excited and energized about it and needed to test it ASAP.  My stash is mostly leftovers from previous projects, and as such doesn't include a lot of FQ sized pieces.  So sad I had to head to the quilt shop!  The Riley Blake bundle jumped right into my hands.

Fabric cut, ready to sew

Cutting went swiftly, sewing almost as swiftly. I meant to take progress photos, but I was in the sewing zone and suddenly there were 20 blocks on the wall and no photos.  I made up for the lack of progress photos with a plethora of  block shuffling photos.

I hated the first layout and feared the whole project was a dud.

Over the course of the next week I shuffled blocks around, took photos, let things sit and simmer, shuffled some more. The darkest fabrics and the one multicolor print gave me trouble.  Thank goodness for my phone camera to help me keep track of what I'd already tried!

Screenshot of my photo gallery

That's just some of the layouts I tried.  There are over 30 on my phone.  Here's what I settled on finally.

I still wasn't 100% sold, but I also wasn't willing to give up on these blocks so I decided to start sewing them together and hope for the best.

Sewing the blocks together and pressing tidied things up quite nicely and it started to grow on me.

Adding the border pulled it all together and now I'm giddy again.  It's brighter than most of my recent quilts, but I used to use bright colours all the time.  I'm not sure when I drifted away from them, but it's been fun to revisit them.

I bought more of the multicolour print for the backing.  

The backing is pieced, and I have a quilting plan.  There will be circles and straight lines.  I'll work out some details as I stitch.  I hope this yellow thread I had on hand will work.  It's a bit brighter than I usually use, but it's a bright quilt so I'll go with it.

I'm excited to start quilting this tonight.  I want it ready to show off when I release the pattern next week!  

Happy quilting,

Joanne

New Pattern Alert: Rapids

 Let's keep this one short and sweet! This is Rapids.

I lacked a quilt holder for this photo shoot.  I have some photos from January, but leading with a picture of it in snow when it's so hot and humid outside right now seems wrong somehow.

Also, the Radiant Wings prints from Island Batik are all about big bold buterflies, dragonflies, and leafy things so the snow doesn't match.  (The light accent is Whip Cream, an Island Batik foundation.)

I chose plain squares to showcase the prints so the eye would focus on the prints instead of the shapes, but I wanted something a little more interesting than rows of squares. The zigzag layout fits the bill, and the accent triangles defining the zigzag path also draw the eye to the print squares.

The cover quilt was made yardage of six prints for the squares, but you could cut the squares from scraps for a scrappier quilt.  If you want a scrappier effect but don't have scraps or you just don't want to sort through them, you can use a package of 5" precut squares and just a little yardge to cut a few extra squares to make up the total number of squares required.

What else do you need to know about this pattern?

• You won't need to cut and sew any individual triangles
• It's suitable for a confident beginner.
• The quilt measures 61" x 77.5"
• It is Rosie-approved.
• You can buy the PDF download version in my Etsy shop, or you ask for a printed version at your favourite quilt shop.

I didn't lead with the snowy picture, but perhaps gazing at it will help counter the current heat.

The snowy picture is helping helping my brain think cool.  I think hunkering down in the sewing room, downstairs where it's cooler, will also help.  I guess I'll just have to go test a few new design ideas.  It's such a hardship :)

Happy quilting,

Joanne

Patchwork Wishes

Patchwork Wishes was supposed to be  Friday Finish reveal, but I kept forgetting to post it on a Friday, so it's just going to be a "any-day-of-the-week but it's finished" post.   

Don't you love a professional (ahem) photo with feet and dog's tail? 
Patchwork Wishes by Canuck Quilter Designs

I shared the start of this quilt back in January, showing off the package of precut squares I used to acheive a coordinated scrappy look with less effort than digging through scrap bins. Though I posted a few brief updates on Instagram and Facebook, I neglected to share here on the blog.  I gave you a peek in my post about binding choices earlier this month, but I think Patchwork Wishes deserves its own post.

The piecing went relatively quickly and I had a Rosie-approved finished top by the middle of January.  

The nine-patch cornerstone blocks are strip-pieced, which reduces the amount of cutting and makes assembly much faster.  Of course the star points are my favourite stitch-and-flip (AKA lost corners) star points that can't be accidentally blunted.  I think the most time-consuming part of this quilt was moving the sashing strips around until I liked the distribution.  I tried to let it be random, but my brain just wasn't having it.

I started quilting it a month later.  That's actually a rather quick start for me.  Quilts I send out to a longarmer get finished promptly, but when I plan to quilt the quilt myself it can languish for a while.  There's a stack of tops growing on my shelves, some of them several years old.  

Repositioning the quilt to continue quilting after running out of bobbin thread

Moving right along...Patchwork Wishes got a quicker start.  As some of you might know, I'm a big fan of my walking foot.  That's what I started with.  I stitched in the ditch in all the seams in the sashing.  That was an easy job.  Tedious, but easy.  Stitching all the way down the quilt multiple times and across the quilt as well was not the most stimulating activity, but audiobooks kept me entertained.

Stitching in the ditch is tedious, but it's a little bit like tracing the outlines of a shape before filling in the middle when you're colouring in a colouring book.  It think it defines the shape and makes things crisper. I love the slightly puffy texture it raised in the sashing of this quilt.  It just screams "I'm a cozy quilt, come curl up" to me.

I also wanted to stitch in the ditch around the stars.  I hoped to use freemotion quilting rulers for that so I wouldn't have to turn the quilt or break thread several times to avoid turning.  However, my sewing machine misbehaves when I ruler quilt, lifting the presser foot up randomly and making me risk a needle in a finger.  It's been in the shop many times but the technician can't figure out what's up, so I've given up on the ruler quilting for now.

In the end, I used the walking foot and just turned the quilt.  It's just small enough to not have required too much effort to smoosh through the throat of the machine at each turn.  I extended the lines through the center of the star for a little added interest and slightly denser quilting.  I was surprised to find I was able to quilt the whole star without breaking thread.

Once all the ditch stitching was finished, I wanted a bit more stitching in the block backgrounds to add more visual interest as well as to even out the quilting density.  I used a hera marker to audition lines where I thought I'd stitch.  The indentation left by the hera marker gives me a better idea of the texture the quilting will add than a drawn line does.  

I quilted all these short lines in long passes, stitching a line, securing stitching with very short stitches at the beginning and ending of each line but not breaking thread, then moving on to the next line in the same direction, all across the quilt.   I went back after and snipped away the thread between the stitched parts.  This was faster than having to pull the bottom thread up from the back at the beginning of each line.

So far so good.  I was thrilled with the texture and subtle detail in the background.

That's where I stopped in very early March.  I just had the border left to quilt, but I could not decide what to do.  Should I try to freemotion a string of stars?  Hold off in the hopes my backup machine could be made to love ruler work again? I considered using the walking foot to quilt a beadboard/piano key design like the one I quilted on Quilter's Scrapbook 15 years ago, but that seeemed really, really tedious.  

What's a quilter to do?  Go work on something else of course.  Feverish sewing to complete four new quilts for upcoming fabric collections ensued. (Can't wait to show you those in December!)

I came back to Patchwork Wishes in late June, settling on gentle cable that I could quilt with the walking foot.  I've had the stencil for years, dating back to my hand quilting days.  I think it's funny I never actually used this particular stencil on a hand quilted quilt but have now used it on three machine quilted quilts.

I did drag my feet for a couple of weeks about marking the border design, convinced it would take forever to adjust the stencil placement to fit just right and that figuring out how to turn the corner would be a pain.  I guess I either forgot it went smoothly the first two times I marked this on a quilt, or it just went more smoothly because I"d done it before.  In any case, once I stopped dragging my feet and complaining, I marked the border in one evening and quilted it in four easy passes around the quilt over the course of two leisurely evenings.

I hadn't planned ahead for the binding and I'm lucky there was still a bit of the border fabric left on the bolt when I went back to the quilt shop.  I suppose I would have found something else to use, but I think the matching binding was perfect for this quilt.

Rosie approves :)

At 56" x 67", it's a lovely size for a throw.  I'm looking forward to curling up under it with a good book when the weather coold down. 

If you have a layer cake (or non-Moda equivalent stack of 10" precuts) waiting for the perfect quilt, Patchwork Wishes might be the one.  I really think this design would work with all sorts of fabric styles.  You can find the pattern as a PDF download in my shop or you can ask for it at your favourite quilt shop.

Time to go rustle up some supper.  Hubby is away this week and cooking for one is boring.  Bread and cheese and an assortment of fruit sounds like an easy summer supper...

Happy quilting,

Joanne