Love that fractured look

My heart belongs to traditional quilt blocks, but I'm  impressed by designs that quilt designers come up with as they're playing around with simple cuts of fabric.  Like this one.

It's a quilt for our grandson.  The layout will be 20 blocks, but the fractured look shows with only these 4 blocks on my design wall.  (16 sections not sewn together yet).

This is the cover quilt ("Honeyberries")  from Evelyn Sloppy's "40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts."  But her cover quilt uses only two colors, and I had to figure out how to position strips of 3 colors, red, blue, and neutral.  Playing with paper and crayons and scissors, I  found that the answer was sewing some strip sets with blue on the outside, some with red on the outside. 

I'm using blues and reds as found in several lines of Minick and Simpson fabrics for Moda.   I'm including some paisleys and some leaves, but nothing too flowery.  (Grandpa is looking over my shoulder, keeping an eye on fabric choices.)

I enjoy seeing all the fabric strips laid out, ready to go.   But better than that are the strip sets, ready to be sewn to each other.   These really are quick blocks.

I decided not to buy a quilt calendar for 2012, but then I won one in a giveaway from Kathy.  Thanks for the 12 months of inspiration, Kathy.

BTW, if you've never visited her blog, check it out some time.  She gets so much done, actually finished her UFOs (my heroine), and she always has something interesting going on.

Stay warm, my fellow quilters.  We have -9 degrees F. predicted here in northern Iowa tonight.   BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR