Earlier this month Taunja of CarriedAwayQuilting released a free pattern called Floating Squares:

As you can see, I downloaded it.

It’s a fresh and clever take on the traditional Economy block, also known as Square-in-a-Square. Each block is made up of a center square surrounded by triangles. By making the triangles that surround the center square a bit larger, the square “floats” in the block because its points don’t touch the next seam.

As Taunja notes in her pattern, this means you don’t have to match points when the squares are sewn together, and you also avoid the possibility of cutting off points. I don’t have a problem with either of those things because I pin and sew carefully. Still, I was drawn to the design because of its ease of construction and slightly airy look.

Her pattern calls for 21 fat quarters. I don’t have many fat quarters in my stash (because I seem incapable of buying pieces of fabric less than a yard in length). As I was pondering what fabrics I might use for some test blocks, my eye fell on one of my very favorite quilts, Scattered Stars, made in 2020 from a collection of fabrics from the “Cheddar and Indigo” line by Penny Rose Studio for Riley Blake Fabrics:

After finishing Scattered Stars, it was plain to see that there was enough fabric left over to make one or even two more quilts.

Although not fully committed to making another cheddar and indigo quilt, I decided to make a few blocks anyway. Three fat quarters yields six 9½” blocks. I started with these three fabrics . . .

. . . and here are the results:

Oh my! That’s a lot of cheddar. Too much cheddar?

Let’s see what putting them on point looks like:

Imagine that with a creamy white fabric in the alternating blocks. Oh yeah!

Before making any final decisions about settings, I’m going to make another set of six blocks using three different fabrics. The blocks go together easily, and Taunya’s pattern is beautifully written and illlustrated.

There is one change I will make in constructing the next six blocks, though. To maximize the use of fat quarters, Taunja’s instructions call for four triangles to be cut from one square, meaning twice on the diagonal. This results in the outer edges of each triangle being on the bias. (Because of this, I starched each block after the second round of triangles was added before squaring it up to 9½”.) Since I’m cutting my fabrics from yardage, I’ll use squares that have been cut only once on the diagonal, which will make the outer edges of each triangle on the straight of grain.

To see more photos of the beautiful quilt on Taunja’s pattern cover, read her blog post here. The post includes a link to download the free pattern.