I sewed these checkerboard blocks on the sly, in between bouts on the chenille quilt.
I couldn't remember where I got the idea from, but realised later it was from a McCalls magazine, fairly recent. So easy and simple to do, I had to stop myself making more. I'm going to try to make a few smaller quilts but for some reason I always want to go bigger and bigger. I have quite enough large quilts and a lap size would be handy this winter.

I worked for two days in the fabric shop this week and took along my cut pieces for Square in Square units. I talked about them in this earlier post. I've cleaned up a lot of fiddly scraps by cutting these shapes (2 5/8' square and 2 3/8" triangles) but I'd been so industrious I had to put them in two drawers of my scrap storage. Time to whittle the stack down a tad.
In the two days I made 12o of the units and decided to set the maroon and green ones into these blocks. They are blindingly simple (once the squ in squ units are pieced) and I'm enjoying every stitch. I was going to make 20, but I had so many bits and I was having such a good time I've increased that to 30. I don't intend to have a border on the top, so I can afford to make a few extra blocks. And they end up 7 1/2", so they're prety small.

I've even picked out the sashing and setting so there's no agonising over this , just straight sewing. I feel like I'm flying ahead after struggling with the unweildy chenille.