Squares placed in a grid are the basis for lots of quilts I’ve made. When I saw a Josef Albers painting with squares in squares at the modern wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC I was mesmerized. The painting was so simply brilliant! Josef Albers created many of these paintings as color studies in many different palettes.
While sorting yellow Cherrywood fabrics purchased at a show I was reminded of the painting at the Met. I searched my phone for the photo I had taken at the MMA.
Painting by Josef Albers in the modern wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
I had 4 yards of Cherrywoods, one yard each of each color, just enough with careful planning to make sure I had enough yellow fabric for the outermost square. For the inner squares, after cutting the correct width, fabric strips were sewn on, pressed, then rotary cut perfectly square. The ‘square’ quilt needed to be as square as humanly possible for the match stitch quilting.
Here’s Yellow Square in progress. I never cut borders to exact size but instead add an additional couple of inches or so to a long border, press seams, then square up with the rotary cutter before adding additional borders.
Six thread colors were used — 100 wt. silk and 50 wt. embroidery. I used four silk threads and two Aurifil 50 weight cottons. Before I started stitching I wasn’t sure how I would distribute the colors across the top but once I got started the choice was easy – I didn’t want to stop and change threads so starting at the first edge I used color #1 across the entire quilt, rolling as I went. At the other end, I started with color #2 and using a ruler stitched a half inch line, rolling back as I went.
The quilting adds texture and the thread blends in with all four fabrics used. At this point I am absolutely loving the texture!
Whenever dense stitching is applied, blocking the quilt really helps get your quilt to lay flat or hang straight. On Yellow Square, I used a squirt bottle to completely saturate the piece then used rulers and a measuring tape to push the layers from the center to the corners and edges to lay flat and square.
Blocking your quilt can really make a difference. I block all of my quilts. Contact me if you’d like more info on this process.
