Tuesday, April 8, 2014

101 Ways to Use a 10 Inch Square

Hello!  It's been awhile since I posted.  I had thought that business would be slow over the colder months, but gratefully, I was wrong.  I've been full up to my eyeballs with custom orders, and not your run-of-the-mill kind either.  But it's this last order that made me have the proverbial "a-ha!" moment.  In the world of a quilter, the 10" fabric square IS the unsung hero.


Here is the last custom order I completed:
yes...I made arm pit pads and handle covers for crutches.  Hey, the customer needed them.  She'll be on crutches for something like 13 weeks following ankle surgery and she couldn't find anything she liked, so here's what I engineered.....from 10" squares.

Here are a few items I've made in the past that have been completely constructed from 10" squares:





I originally cut a gross of 10: squares at Christmas time to make bowl cozies for Christmas orders.  Well, I had cut more than I would EVER get to making so I ended up with a huge stack of the things and the remarkable happened.  As I would get orders for things like snack sized lunch totes or trivets, I already had these cut in the fabrics that my customers were requesting, so I thought 10" was a great size for a trivet, a potholder or candle mat.  


So , here lies my stack of magic squares.  I keep them on hand and pull them out for bowl cozies, toiletry bags or crutch handle covers.  You just never know.

Call them what you want, layer cake squares, crackers, etc.  they are the handiest thing to keep around.  My advice is to take a little time and cut a few from that stash that you have laying around.  You can get 12 out of a yard of fabric.  You'd be amazed at what you can do with those 12 magic squares.

Visit our Facebook page and share pictures of what you have used your layer cake squares for.  Of course, there are many patterns and books devoted to quilts made strictly from 10" squares.  One of my favorite patterns for a layer cake is "Delectable" which is a twist on the Delectable Mountains quilt pattern from long ago made SUPER SIMPLE from 10" squares.  This is gorgeous in rich batiks.

But for little old me, shop owner and quilted product manufacturer...these little babies are 10" of pure joy when I get an obscure order and I can simply got to my stack....okay, maybe not 101 ways...but a whole lot!

Visit our website at www.quiltstorenextdoor.com and be sure to like us on Facebook.  We are also on Twitter.

See you soon!

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