This year’s beach quilt is…different.  I wanted to do something different from the framed squares I often do. 

I had about a quarter yard left of most of the fabrics I wanted to use, and tried to make the most of them.  I wanted to make Disappearing Four Patches and do a color wash effect, but keep the patches large to show the prints.

I cut 8.5″ patches and sewed them into 16.5″ blocks. When I cut and resewed them to “disappear” them, they became 15.5″ blocks. (Why do all the tutorials say you will lose two inches?) Thus the finished quilt is about 45″ x 60″.

For the record, there is no way to make a color wash from a dozen giant 15″ blocks. I tried them every which way (and made and discarded a few spares), and finally settled on this. It’s pretty, but not exactly what I was going for.

Ah, well.