does anyone know the easiest pattern for the double irish chain?

I do mine Quilt in a Day!

Quilt in a Day, Eleanor Burns. You cannot go wrong if you follow her steps and do not get ahead of yourself.

I don't have a picture because I've stashed it... I'll try and dig it out and snap a pic... I am doing the DIC for my daughter's wedding -- she is actually my step, but I raised her since she was 5 -- she is of irish descent, and I found some St. Pat's fabric that spoke to me... DIC was the perfect pattern, there are basically two blocks... 25 squares... make 1 less of 1 block (i.e. 18 of one, 17 of other) and lay it out... it will automatically "appear"...
*off to sewing room to find pieces!* BRB

Quick pix with phone, sorry for bad resolution! You get the idea, I am braiding the design thru the black, because when quilting, will write Scripture Passages in black sashing border (she is marrying a pastor-in-training)...

it was a little bit of extra math to get the design to migrate thru the sashing... if you look close, you'll see how many blocks to alter :) most people don't do the extra little tweak in the middle of the lighter block, but I wanted to do something in there that matched.

quilt in a day is the easiest method

Wow, that is pretty. I tried the Quilt in a Day site only to find the pattern there not free. I got one off the internet but don't know how to figure out how to figure the block design for a double quilt.

That easy peasy - measure how wide the width (in other words, how much drop down the sides of your bed do you want?)... then figure out how many blocks across you want (it will be an odd #!)...

you can run some math -- if a 2" width turns into 1.5" after joining, you get 7.5" width (finished after joining) block... x 9 blocks = 67.5 inches... add your sashing at 6" cut (5.5 finished) and you've built it to 79 inches wide already... if that doesn't work, run a different original width (I am doing mine with the strip method, much faster than individual squares)

My Double Irish Chain was done from instructions in "The It's Okay If You Sit On My Quilt Book" by Mary Ellen Hopkins using the strip method.

Pheaseantduster, that is so pretty, I can only dream of making one so pretty. Since you have the book, can you tell me how many strips I will need of each color to make a full size or about that size?

Thanks