Monday, August 11, 2014

Architextures Quilt - ALYOF


For my August goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes, I wanted to take these orphan blocks given to me by a friend and turn them into a quilt for the 100 Quilts for Kids event.

Well, once again I found myself filled with some time and sewing mojo on a Friday night. Not having anything else on my design walls,  I grabbed these and thought I would play around with them.





I quickly laid them out in an alternating pattern.  Just by adding some sashing, this would make a cute baby quilt.


But I really wanted to make something a bit more challenging.
















Playing with the blocks a bit more on my design wall, I really liked the look of the lime green and dark gray creating a bar across the quilt.

I thought this might be a fun starting point.






From the moment I saw these blocks, I knew I wanted to see some Kona navy with them.  So I started by simply adding a strip between all the lime blocks. So far so good!




I then pulled out some Kona charcoal and added borders around the other blocks.  I wanted them to be staggered so I simply made one side of the border a bit bigger.




Because I only had a few blocks to work with, I needed something to stretch these blocks a little bit further.  I knew I had been hoarding some of the white and lime green shrub fabric from this line so I decided to add a bit from my stash.  I simply incorporated some strips of the white vertically between the gray blocks...








Then used the lime shrub fabric to bring back the navy on the top and bottom of the quilt.


I adore how this turned out!  The top is a nice size now (45" x 55") so it can be loved by an older kid.  Plus it will be great for some young boy as I am told by charities that boy quilts are always hard to come by.



Sunday I was able to get this on my longarm and quilt it up.  Then Monday evening was spent sewing on the binding.  I went with more of the navy for the binding to tie the whole quilt together.




For the quilting, I opted to just quilt horizontal way lines. Quick and Easy!





And while it was really hard to do, I gave up more of the white Architextures print for the backing.  I really didn't have anything else that looked good and it was just about the perfect size.  I did need to add a gray inset to make it wide enough but that gave me the opportunity to use the last of the lime orphan blocks.

ALYoF2014
I can't believe it is so early in the month and I am already finished with my August A Lovely Year of Finishes quilt. Could be I was jazzed having won a prize last month?

A big thanks to Sew Bittersweet Designs for helping me keep focused in my efforts to finish up the half finished and to Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs for donating some of her great patterns!
Can't wait to try out her Peanut Butter Pinwheel pattern.





100 Quilts for Kids
This quilt will be donated to a local organization called Bags of Love as part of the 100 Quilts for Kids event hosted by Heather at Quilts in the Queue.  It will be added to the Triangle quilt I recently finished.  Now I get to figure out what to do next!!





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14 comments:

Kate said...

Nicely done. It will make a great quilt for a little boy. I like how you showed how the design came together.

Dena said...

The quilting design works well with the piecing design.

Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl said...

This is lovely! I like how you stacked all the lime green together to start and worked out from there. The navy is a great contrast with it, and the finish is wonderful! Wow, you really had a productive weekend! :)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing the process you used to get to the final result. It was really interesting to follow your thought process. Very cool quilt!!

SewPsyched! said...

This turned out so wonderfully!! And I just love how the blog post reads like a very tempting story book!! XX!
Lori

Liz said...

Beautiful finish! Love that line, and love how you turned the orphan blocks into your own!

Karee said...

you had me as soon as I read your blog's name. sympatico, baby!

Connie Kresin Campbell said...

What a beautiful quilt and it was fun to watch how you started with the simple blocks and created it!

The Cozy Pumpkin said...

Enjoyed that you shared your process, and yes, boy quilts are VERY hard to come by in charity quilts. Good for you!

Rachel said...

I love that little pop of green on the back. So fun! You're a very generous lady to use so much of your favorites in one fell swoop. I was having trouble deciding to use a piece of fabric from my stash that went well with a project because "I won't have any left when I'm done." It's hard to use up the ones we really like!

CapitolaQuilter said...

Great choice all along the way.

Ann said...

How interesting to read and see your process for making this adorable quilt. Love the front and back. Using our best fabric makes the quilts better and worth the time we invest. Good for you!

Michele said...

Yeah for you and a quick finish is always a great thing.

Lorna McMahon said...

A beautiful little quilt and for such a worthy cause. Love that you made the backing to coordinate with the front. Love the wavy horizontal quilting. Such a gorgeous finish!

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