The return of the 2" squares . . . .

The 2" squares languished in the dark in their pizza boxes for years. In the meantime I'd learned all about stitching through little pieces of scrap fabric in between batches of piecing. This was to save thread, to prevent the machine from becoming unthreaded, and to keep the machine from "eating" sharp points on little pieces of fabric. Quilt teachers everywhere touted this system, giving these little scraps cutesy names. I dutifully stitched through my scrap until it was so covered with thread that I could hardly see the original fabric, at which time I tossed it and started on another.

Then along came the reining queen of scrap piecing, quilt construction, and online tutorials - Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville fame and the Quilt Mavericks ring. Being a lady of creative brilliance, Bonnie had come up with her Leader-Ender system. What a tremendous concept - instead of wasting thread in scraps piece a second quilt at the same time you are piecing your primary quilt. I "met" Bonnie through the Stashbusters yahoo group three or four years ago and quickly became one of her biggest fans. I loved the idea of leader-enders. I was doing almost no piecing at the time - having become completely addicted to needle turn appliqué and folk art quilts - but I promised myself that as soon as I started piecing again I'd try the leader-ender system.

Fast forward to this year. I'm still doing appliqué but I'm also piecing again. And when I started piecing I suddenly remembered all those 2" squares. So I dug out the pizza boxes and separated the thousands of squares into lights and darks, which wasn't hard because each box was already arranged from light to dark when I took the illumination class years ago. I dumped the lights into one basket and the darks into another. Many of the pieces are really mediums, which just adds more interest to the mix. I started sewing a light and a dark square together as my leader ender piece. I pressed them and tossed them into a third container. I did this for months and months without any idea what I'd do with them.

Fast forward to last week. When I finished the current round on my medallion I decided I wanted to play with the squares. They could be 4-patches, 9-patches, postage stamp blocks or any of several dozen other things. However, my friend Kathie in New Jersey had started a making postage stamp blocks that really spoke to me. I know it was because she had wonderful scraps from lots of 19th century reproduction fabrics. I decided that even though mine are entirely different fabrics that was what I wanted to do. So I did. And I really like how they are turning out. So far I have no idea how I will set them together.

As you can see I have hundreds more 2" squares to stitch together. They represent a history of the first 10 to 12 years of my stash, plus many oddball 2" squares that I've cut from scraps since then and added to the mix. Years and years from now they will be a historians dream - a palette of fabrics from the early part of the late 20th century quilting renaissance. Separately some are pretty and some are darn ugly - but all together they make a beautiful new whole.