A Finish and an In-Progress

Whee, I had a busy Friday!  After the usual morning run of household chores, I took the boys to the Play to Learn session at the Civic Center, then we came home and had lunch, before going over to the Point Defiance Zoo to meet up with my sister and niece.  (And I am very proud that I remembered to bring the duck eggs my sister asked me to order from the co-op.  And remembered to give them to her.  Sometimes I can be forgetful.)  And we were in luck; almost none of the animals were hiding!

After we got back from that, I also remembered to have Wonderful Husband hold up the Cloverleaf quilt for a finished photograph:

I'm planning to show it off at guild this week, and then Wonderful Husband can ask his friend for his address, and I can get it mailed off.

In the evening, after dinner, I also sat down and finished my first dozen log cabin blocks:

They're all pressed but not yet trimmed.  I think they'll have to be checked for that later, after I've sewn more of them, as at least a couple strips were wonky.  Which I realized after I'd sewn them on....

Cloverleaf Quilting

Another advantage of a baby or toddler quilt, beyond the "do not need to piece a backing" advantage, is how quickly they quilt up!

When I made up the label on Saturday, I decided to date it to Sunday, thinking that even with a birthday party to attend during the day, I could get the Cloverleaf quilt done.  And I did!

My Sunday:

I used a very pale green thread, which completely disappears in the setting squares, so it was really no good trying to photograph the swags I quilted onto each side of each square.  But the leaf-and-heart motif I came up with for the Disappearing Four-Patch squares turned out rather nicely, I thought:

The border just got a hills and valleys wave, with four more little hearts in the corners.  No pictures of that or the binding, I'm afraid, as it was night by the time I finished, and as soon as I did finish it, it was teeth-brushing and storytime, and then bed for two little people.

Still, a quilt done in a day!

Now I just need to decide what the next project is.

Cloverleaf Quilt, Backing and Binding

I don't make them often, so I always forget one of the glorious parts of baby quilts is not having to piece the backing!  I hauled in my newly rediscovered green fabrics, and asked Wonderful Husband's help in picking out a backing and binding.  After pressing, here are the results!

The quilt is laid out on the backing here to make sure it fits.  Though it would make a good second border if I wanted to make it bigger!  (Which I don't.)

I have a little over three yards of this Cranston Fabrics print, which must be about twenty years old at this point!  I remember I bought it to go with a bunch of green block-of-the-month kits from Joanns, which got given away at some point along the line.

And Wonderful Husband disregarded my theory that bindings should be as dark as the darkest color in the quilt, and picked this, which brings out some of the lighter greens in the blocks and the flange:

I didn't actually get to cut anything yesterday, due to gallivanting with my sister, and I can't write out the label until Wonderful Husband wakes up, as the name of the little girl this is for is in his e-mail somewhere.  So, quiet holding pattern this morning.  I shall drink tea and catch up on the Internet until other people rise.

A Quick(?) Quilt

I needed another project like I needed a hole in my head.

Nonetheless, while digging through a box of strips the other day, I found twelve 8.5" Disappearing Four-Patch blocks done in muslin and two different greens.  They're definitely blocks I made, but I can't remember what for.  Block Lotto (RIP)?  Guild Block of the Month?  And why didn't I turn them in, if so?  So, call them probably four or five years old at this point.

As I was tidying things up to put away, my eye kept resting on them.  And the stack of green fabrics I'd pulled out to audition for Evergreen blocks.  And the stack of fabrics from the thrift store.  Finally I caved and did a quick layout to see what I thought:

Sometimes your creativity is limited by what you have on hand.  I knew I didn't have any more greens available without extensive digging.  And while my first thought was a one inch border of the lighter green, I didn't have enough of that either.

Next came cutting alternate squares and setting triangles:

My go-to tutorial for figuring out setting triangles, BTW, is Bonnie Hunter's On Point Quilts.  Always round up just a smidge if you end up with numbers with an eighth measurement in them.  Better safe than sorry!

Since there wasn't quite enough of the lighter green for a border stripe, I cut it narrower (1" instead of 1.5"), pressed it in half, and used it as a flange for just a pop of color:

The finished quilt top is 40" x 51".  A little large for a true baby quilt, but I like to give toddler sized quilts as baby gifts anyway.  Babies grow.  And this is a size that my six-year-old (who is like 90th percentile, size-wise) would still use.  So there will be much more use gotten out of something like this than something merely crib sized.

I was kind of tempted to name this one something like Emerald City, but I think I'll go with Cloverleaf.  Not quite what the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is intended for, but given that it used up a fair bit of green fabric, I'll count it for the month?