Secret Garden Posy Patrol Quilt

Finished October 2015

I started this quilt at a workshop with the pattern writer, Dana Bolyard.  KMQG had her in to teach us more about curves.  I was pregnant with Cole and not planning on going to the workshop bc I had been so sick and tired.  But I'm so glad I jones in the fun.  Dana was a lot of fun and even brought home baked goods for us to snack on!  (Perfect for the pregnant lady!) 

I used lots of greens from my stash and then used lots of leftover greens for the backing.

I'm glad I was able to use up some pieces of extra I had... No need to purchase backing fabric for this one!  Yay!

I quilted with a FMQ swirl that turned out really nice.  I love the quilting on this one. I was making this to sell at an upcoming event at The Hive but I think I've decided to sell the Vertebrae quilt.  Always a difficult decision.  But I think this one fits into our home a little better!  And I love it.

I used pellon cotton batting and aurifil thread, and bound with some leftover raindrops and flowers from the lighter prints I used.

Tinsel + Score No. 7

Is it too early for a Christmas quilt on my couch?!  Cause I'm in love with this guy.  I purchased Sherry Lynn Wood's new book, the improv handbook for modern quilters and have been dying to jump in!  (I really, really enjoyed hearing her speak at QuiltCon and would love to take a class with her!  Anyone else in Knoxville wanna have her here for a class?!  Maybe 2016!). But anyway-- my Tinsel by cotton and steel was begging to be cut into.  I wanted to pair it with some solids I had on hand so that I could make a lap quilt and get the curves to pop out.

Unfortunately, like Score 7 calls for 'getting lost', I played it safe and used the same cuts and layout as a quilt in the book.  My life with a newborn is crazy, lost enough so I just wanted to SEW!  And the quilt in the book is SO good!

I started by cutting 17" squares of 20 fabrics, 9 prints, 11 solids.  I wanted one more solid but ran out of solid navy so grabbed a FQ from another C&S line, matched perfectly!  Then, I paired up the 20 squares into five piles of 4 fabrics each, mixing and matching values and no more than two prints in each stack then started cutting! I'd say my favorite blocks turned out to be the two that were all solids.  Go figure.  (Keep buying prints Melissa, keep buying prints!). 

I thought piecing the odd shaped wonky blocks together would be really challenging.  I decided to piece 4 together at a time (like I did with my meadow blocks which lizzy house showed us at QuiltCon!) in a large square, two up, two down and it worked pretty well!  I wanted it to be off, just as the blocks are off, so I didn't trim, I laid the two blocks on top of each other, right sides together, making sure there was good overlap everywhere, pinned, maybe even draw a pencil line to help you with your seam line... Perfect!  Then, lined up the seam line on my mat and trimmed after two were together, so I had a straight top and bottom.  It worked well for me!  

I love the results!!  And deciding on quilting came pretty quickly -- overlapping arches!  A little late I decided to add in some other quilting patterns, which I adore, but wish I had done a couple more near the top.  I can't wait to make another improv quilt.  It was a very rewarding quilt and I started and finished in a week. I'd reccommend this book to anyone interested in improv!

Backing: 4 left over FQs from my bundle with 2 yards green star print from Juliana Horner's collection at Joann.

Batting: Pellon Nature's Choice, Cotton Batting with Scrim, Natural Color
Thread: Aurifil 2830 50 weight

Finished Size (before washing): 62 in x 73 in