Page 39 of Marked By Shadows

“Any of them? Doesn’t matter the size?”

“Sugar, size always matters,” Jonah piped up.

“Nope,” I corrected. “I bought everything with ideas in mind. So whatever size squares you want. We can even mix and match.”

“How about these? They make me think of strawberry lemonade or something.” Alex chose a set of 5” squares, the colors a mix of of stripes, swirls and florals in coral, green, orange, white, pink, and black. I’d picked up the set because it reminded me of spring gardens, fresh berries, and bright colors. Alex seemed drawn to bright colors, though he rarely wore them. But I’d picked a few packs with him in mind.

“Sure,” I agreed. “Let’s do a disappearing nine patch.”

“A disappearing what?”

I took the squares from him, stitched a set of nine together, three rows of three and then ironed it. When I laid them out on the cutting board he got really worried.

“What? All that work and now you cut it?” Alex gave me a squinty side eye.

“Do you trust me?” I asked.

“I guess.” He sounded less than certain at that moment.

“You wanted magic, right?”

“Yes.” This time more confident.

I picked up the large ruler, centered it vertically, and used the rotary blade to cut the block in half. Then, since I was using a rotating cutting mat, turned the entire thing with a little twist of the mat, to cut down the horizontal side as well, creating four blocks.

“Here is where your magic really happens,” I told Alex as I separated out the blocks. “Turn this top right one, and the bottom left one.” I turned the two, putting the larger uncut blocks pointing toward the middle, and suddenly it looked like a whole new pattern. “Now we sew them back together. It looks like we took a mad amount of time to make small pieces and sew them into these designs, when all we did is cut a block and turn it.”

Alex gaped at the design. “Wait, do that again.”

I flipped the blocks back to the way they had been, aligning the edges so it still looked like the nine squares. Then I flipped the top right one, which made the large print square point toward the middle, and a small square appear in the corner beside a couple of lines of green. The whole process made the piecelooklike you’d worked forever on it by sewing small pieces together. Except it was a simple block, sew, then cut, process.

Alex flipped the bottom left. Examining it.

“You can flip the other two as well,” I turned them so the larger uncut blocks all faced the center, leaving small squares at each corner and the entire thing appearing as though it were bordered in green. “This is a cornerstone,” I said pointing to the small square in the corners. “You can create a half dozen designs by simply changing how you lay out these squares after you cut them. That’s where the magic is.”

Alex studied the pieces, flipped them around a few more times before landing back on the first one I’d shown him. “Now I sew them together?”

“Yes, like we did the first squares, right sides together.” I took them and sewed the new set of four squares together, then pressed it again.

“We made that.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s tiny.”

“That’s why we make more and then put them all together. Quilts are made from many smaller blocks like this one.”

His lips curved into a big oh.

“Do you want to try?” I asked him.

Alex shook his head. “I’m so worried I’ll break something, or mess something up.”

“I can fix pretty much anything you might do,” I promised him.

“Except my anxiety about it,” Alex admitted, indicating he knew it was an unreasonable fear.

“You would feel better if I sew and you watch?”