Simple Squares, Striking Modern-ish Quilts

A couple of years ago, I got myself hooked on squares. Among the results is a set of 5 sibling quilts - quiltuplets! - made up of 4" squares. Even beginners can do this. Here's #1. 

Detail - easy freemotion designs repeated along the diagonal. 

 #2 below. It has a preppy border...

And insanely simple quilting....

#3: I satin stitch appliqued the smaller squares.

 Baby #4, with paper-foundation-pieced scrappy triangle borders:

Detail: 

And finally, I chopped up leftover squares to make the youngest and kookiest (which squeaked into QuiltCon.)

Below are some of the dozens of photos I took of my design wall when a bunch of them were in progress: 

Next, four of the centers sewn together; I considered joining them into one quilt.

Even after I finished three of them, I toyed with the idea of stitching them together. (Or maybe joining them with a zipper?) (By the way, the molding above my design wall holds my Pez collection, which probably influences my quilts more than I would like.)

It's so much fun to explore color and value when you don't have to worry about complex piecing.  Plus, if your stash isn't huge, you can use precuts - squares or strips - to maximize choices without having to buy a yard of each fabric. Start by sorting squares  by color and value...

...then deal them out, starting from the center and moving outward, playing with going up and down the value and hue scale.

More adventures with squares include a recent rhyming quilt; 25-36 square small gifts; 24-scrap postcards, a heavily embellished 10" 100-square backwards wallhanging; a 153-square backwards wallhanging and a 144 button wallhanging.