I’ve been borrowing some books from the library for inspiration while we shelter-in-place, so thought I would share one of my fabric adventures that resulted. The book is Kaffe Fassett’s Heritage Quilts, which includes a quilt (the one on the cover) called Autumn Crosses. (Clicking on the book cover will take you to the book’s product page on Amazon.com. The book, for some reason, isn’t on KF’s website.)

I was intrigued by the use of his striped fabric in this quilt. Each block is a cross, and each cross is made up of four squares: each square has a diagonal seam to make a mitred corner.

The instructions are quite clever: you cut 8 identical squares, mark the diagonal, sew two seams (1/4″ on either side of the marked cutting line), then cut the squares after sewing. When you press the seams open, ta da, there’s one of the four mitred squares for the cross. The diagonal seam line is on the bias, of course, and it’s much easier to sew a stable seam this way. And actually, out of those 8 squares, you get two different cross blocks.

My fat quarter was of his Exotic Stripe in the colourway Warm. It looked like this:

It’s so gorgeous that I had to snap it up. I’ve had it in my stash for years but haven’t wanted to cut it. Here’s my first batch of squares in progress:

At the top left, there’s a pair of squares with their two diagonal seams. Top right, the squares have been cut between the seams. Below are two blocks pressed open – you get a square of each from each block. The original squares are cut 3 7/8″ square and the block of four is 6.5″ square. It’ll finish out to 6″ once it’s seamed.

Out of the fat quarter, I got three batches of eight squares, which resulted in six blocks. I’m not so fond of crosses, but I played around with my mitred squares and think they’re awesome like this:

I’ve paired them together for the shot: each top and bottom came from the same seamed block. It’s amazing how different they are!

Six blocks isn’t a lot, though. The quilt in Kaffe’s book has eleven rows of nine squares each, or 99 blocks. I’d make a smaller quilt, but still need more. This fabric is discontinued – that’s the hazard of hoarding stash! – but I did find another fat quarter of it in my stash. (Yay! Proof that it was irresistible!) I also found some more fat quarters of KF stripes in similar colours:

The third one from the right isn’t pink at all, even though it looks that way in the photograph. I have more striped fabric but wanted to focus on that brick red and the olive green.

I’m thinking I might set alternate blocks of these stripey squares and an exuberant floral print – or one with lots of curves to contrast with the stripes. Here are two colourways of a Philip Jacobs print I love, called Japanese Chrysanthemum:

Here are two more Philip Jacobs prints, Luscious on the left and Shaggy on the right:

Here are two favorites of mine—KF’s Millefiore on the left and Paperweight by KF on the right:

Of course, all of these prints come in many colourways. I’ll have to make a bunch of squares, then take them to the fabric store to find the print that pops.