About a year and a half ago, I sent my mom a text that began “Hell has frozen over, I have a question about quilting….” Marge has always been a sewer—from her childhood Barbie outfits to both her and our clothes a few decades ago, not to mention countless projects around the house, prom dress hems and more. I’d be willing to bet my parents’ house has more than one quilt in every room. She was our 4-H leader for sewing and owned a sewing machine shop for a while as well, which I worked at part-time in high school.

So in short, I’ve always been a sewer as well. But, as I’m sure you can tell by now, I’m not much of a pattern-follower, so quilting didn’t appeal to me. But here’s the big secret, readers: quilt squares don’t have to follow a pattern.

When I got a hankering to start a quilt, I just started sewing triangles together. I knew the feel I wanted, so I picked up 8 fat quarters (which are quarter-yard pieces that are more square-shaped than long and skinny like they would be off a bolt of fabric) and cut angular pieces that I simply sewed together into interesting arrangements. Once I ironed them flat and trimmed each into a 6-inch square—voila! Quilt squares!

Now to assemble: I got 50 squares out of my fabric, but didn’t like the shape when I arranged them 5 wide by 10 tall. So, I nixed two of the squares and went with a 6 by 8 quilt. I wanted to use some fabric I already had for the strips between squares, so I did some math and figured out that I had enough fabric for 2.5″ strips. One more afternoon of sewing—assembly-line style—and I have my quilt top finished!

I still have to do the actual quilting of the blanket, but I’m waiting to buy batting in the U.S.—it’s just too expensive here. Either way, I’m excited to be in the home stretch!