Neutral Basketweave

At www.blockcentral.net/eve we are doing a neutral strip swap. I've pulled out an old UFO that will be finished up now thanks to this swap.
I started this one LONG ago and kind of forgot about it. It's a basketweave in all neutrals. I am hoping that once the quilt top is done, I can applique some big bold flowers on it, right over the basket weave... but first I need to get the neutral part done. This is a REALLY easy project. The quilt is 64" square. I think I might add an 8" border to all the sides so that it's 80" square. The main part takes 64 strips, 2-1/2" x WOF (width of fabric).

Sew 4 of the strips together... I put the darker strips on the top and bottom and the lighter ones in the middle. I think this will give it more of a 3D shading when finished. Now cut up the long piece into 8-1/2" squares. I have a NIFTY template called "Get Squared" that is exactly that size so it makes cutting them up VERY EASY! You need 4 squares from each long strip. You'll have some leftover pieces... I just add them to the scrap pile for my next crazy quilt.

I stack them in piles and label them. There are 8 rows and 8 columns. Rows run side to side and colums are up and down.

The easiest way to put it all together is to lay it all out on your design wall (or floor as I do :).

I lay row one, with 8" spaces between the 4 blocks. Then I layed out row 2, but these go under the empty spaces. Then I put down column 1, starting under row 1 and skipping spaces. Then column 2.

You want every other block of row 1 to be the same, every other block of row 2 to be the same, etc. Same with the columns... every other block in the column is the same. I used somewhat lighter blocks going up and down.. and deeper ones going across. I'll post a picture of my completed top in a few days. Guess I need to get sewing!