I've always liked - and remembered - the line from the movie, Twister... "Julia, I gotta go... we got cows."  Now,  after months of waiting, I think we can do just a skosh better."  Julia - I gotta go... we got cake!"

. So what is a Cake Mix?  It's a 10" x 10" pad of triangle paper sized for using with Layer Cakes. There are 45 sheets in each pad - one for each piece of fabric in a Layer Cake plus a few extras for "testing". Recipes?  There are four different grids so there are currently four different recipes.  Two of the recipes make two different sizes of half-triangle

squares from the same paper, and the remaining two recipes make a single size half-triangle square on each sheet.

Is that it?  Nope.  Each recipe pad includes at least four block options for the HTSs made with that recipe grid.  There is also information on simple settings and layouts, and how big the quilts

would be. Think of the Cake Mix pad as being like a Devil's Food cake mix from the grocery store.  Take one Cake Mix, add 1 or 2 Layer Cakes and you've got everything you need to make a quilt.  Or a chocolate cake.  It's a great cake too - simple, fast and just a few ingredients. But if you start adding extras - like a can of cherry pie filling - and you can turn that chocolate cake mix into Chocolate Cherry Bars! But I'm getting just a bit ahead of the story.  This is the quilt that started the baking...

I saw this quilt on Pinterest and started trying to figure out if I could get the parts I needed from a pre-cut.  Two matching charm packs were quickly rejected - the block would be too small and I would be two small HTSs short.  Layer Cakes?  A few sheets of paper and lots of numbers and squares later... what you'll find in Recipe 2 was complete. I drew

up several grids and the next thing you know... we're making Cake Mix quilts for Fall Quilt Market.

Clockwise from the upper left:

• Recipe 1 - Mandarin Cake - Rachel Remembered by Betsy Chutchian
• Recipe 4 - Shortbread 1 - Corner of 5th & Fun by Sandy Gervais
• Recipe 4 - Shortbread 2 - Corner of 5th & Fun by Sandy Gervais
• Recipe 1 - Walnut Squares - Sweet Cherry Wine by Blackbird Designs

While the Cake Mix pads include everything you need to make most of these quilts, we wanted to write "recipes" for each of the quilts we'd made to let you know what we'd done.  And because recipes really should be about cookies, cakes and such, the quilts got names to correspond with an edible recipe. The specifics about each Cake Mix are:

• Recipe 1 - 4" and 8" finished
• Recipe 2  - 2 1/4" and 4 1/2" finished.
• Recipe 3 - 2" finished
• Recipe 4 - 4" and/or 3 3/4" finished

The number of recipe cards required to make a block varies - it depends on the block and the recipe.  I know... it's confusing but it's kind of like how many slices of cake you can get from a 9" square cake.  It all depends on how you cut it - squares or rectangles - and how big the pieces are. Clockwise from the upper left:

• Recipe 2 - Carrot Cake - Spring A Ling by American Jane
• Recipe 4 - All Bark - Maven by BasicGrey
• Recipe 3 - White Christmas - Snowfall by Minick & Simpson
• Recipe 4 - Blueberry Crumb - True Blue by Zen Chic

To put this all in one place - Go to Fun & Free at the top of this page.  From there - Cake Mix. Or you could just go directly there... the first thing you'll see is this - [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLvUDBLAZR_MpWquII2CnSK5vmhW4vh4fk&v=... Cake Mix Recipe 2 - the quilt at the end is Lemon Bars - made with Lulu Lane by Corey Yoder. As for the rest of the page - those are the recipes for each of the quilts we've made so far.  And yes, the edible recipe behind the name of each quilt is included in the PDF. download. There are two more quilts coming in the next couple of weeks...

Bella Solids and a few extra fabrics.  And there's something about a Sugar Pie coming too. I'm sure I've forgotten something... it's a common occurrence. The Julia in the Twister movie line wasn't Julia Child but she does tie into this.  Like so many others, I loved Julia Child.  Smart, funny, independent and her own woman - it stands to reason that she said a lot of smart, funny and very wise things.  Each Cake Mix pad includes a quote from Julia Child. My favorite is - A party without cake is just a meeting. Layer Cakes and Cake Mixes. That sounds like fun to me.