Way last February, at our annual PPQG retreat, all of the participants made disappearing four-patch blocks in reds, whites, and blues.

I have to say that I am truly amazed at how beautiful and scrappy it all looks.  Some people used colors other than the traditional red, white, and blue.  We have some light blue, some off white, and somehow it all blends beautifully.

Since then, I've been playing with different arrangements on my design wall.  

This is one of those projects that (sadly) I kept putting off.  It seemed like a huge mountain to me.

First, all of the blocks needed to be squared up to a consistent size.  Fortunately, my friend and fellow quilter Deb squared them up for me.  

Still, huge mountain!

But I finally got to it this week.  I finalized my arrangement, then got busy sewing all the squares together.  

Many years ago Libby Lehman taught a class at my guild and she showed us a method of sewing lots of squares into a quilt.    In the photo below you can just barely see gaps between the horizontal quilt rows.  That is because I sewed all the lengthwise seams first, but didn't cut the threads between the squares.  So at this point all I needed to do was to sew the crosswise seams together, and they are all held in just the right position.  This way nothing gets lost, and my quilt comes out the way I had planned it on the design wall.

Now all the horizontal rows need to be sewn together and again back up on my design wall.  I think I'll see if I can get some help adding a border and doing the basting and quilting.