Square in a Square / The Math

A standard layer cake is 42 pieces of 10 inch fabric. 

(2) layer cakes yield = 84 pieces.

If you have read the previous blog post "Square in a Square / The Beginning" - you have a pretty good idea of the colors and shapes of your layer cake fabrics. 

** Iron, but don't steam or starch because that will definitely shrink the fabric and you need every inch for the smaller units.

** Put everything into labeled piles and then trim and cut.  After you see the fabrics grouped together you might alter what becomes a center square, middle square and outside!

Let's begin: Start with the largest amount of fabric pieces to put aside - the OUTSIDE square. 

Remove 60 pieces that you want for the OUTSIDE squares.  Shown above in dark blue on the left, and on the right picture - mismatched in browns. (2) layer cake pieces create ONE outside square.  

Trim each of the 60 pieces to 9" x 9".  

Now, cut each piece on the diagonal ONCE.

Yield = 4 large triangles that will make the outside square

What is left of the layer cake bundle is 24 pieces - you only need 23.  

Take those 23 layer cake squares and cut them into 5" x  5" squares.  (shown above in purple)

Yield will be (92) - you need 90.  

Put aside (30) of the 5" x 5" square - these will be the CENTER pieces. Do not cut. 

And lastly - take the remaining (60) 5" x 5" and cut them ONCE on the diagonal to make the middle squares.  (4 triangles per block)

And there you have it - everything you need to assemble an economy block quilt using (2) layer cakes.  

Make the 30 piles - center square uncut - 4 middle triangles - and finally (pix below) the larger outer triangles. 

The last post for this quilt will be pictures of how to sew and trim each round.  

Size: 62.5" x 75"

December 2020