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