Maybe My Fastest Quilt Ever?!

I think this might just be the fastest quilt I've ever made!

                                     

On a Friday I was given a bag full of pre-cut squares.  They were about 4 1/2" square.  And I was told to make a quilt to sell at our annual Festival of the Trees at Gualala Arts Center.  Every year our quilt guild has a booth there and raises a lot of money for the Art Center and for us.

So I separated lights and darks into two stacks.  Then I proceeded to make them into 9-patches.  I always put the dark patches on the outside, as that pile was higher than the pile of light patches.

All of the nine-patches got sewn together, then basted with batting and backing.

I used a large-ish overall stippling to quilt this, and now I think I can really, honestly say that stippling is one of my least favorite designs to quilt.  I used to think that was just my opinion because I couldn't do it very well.  But this one came out pretty good.  I just--plain and simple--don't like sewing this type of design!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  The nine-patches don't show up a lot, but they are there, and give it just a slight bit of order.

For the backing I chose a light pink/green/blue stripe.  This quilt turned out to be just a tiny bit wider than 44", and this particular piece of fabric was a little wider, too.  So no piecing!

I even had one 9-patch left over so I used it as the label on the back.

And I couldn't possibly do anything but a scrappy binding on this scrap quilt!  We quilters are often hoarders, aren't we.  I have a collection of leftover bits of binding.  Whenever I had a piece left over after binding a quilt, I would throw it in a bag.  So I sewed several of them together to bind this quilt.  I knew I was saving them for a reason!

So after receiving the blocks on Friday, this nice lap-size quilt was finished the following Wednesday.  I'm sure that's a record for me!

Nine-Patch Variation

We had an all-day comfort quilt workshop for our June guild meeting. We all worked on comfort quilts or Quilts of Valor. Someone in our guild said, and I quote, "Comfort quilts are the best thing we do."

We give away many, many comfort quilts and Quilts of Valor every year. Seems there is a never-ending need for these quilts.

I had a new (to me) pattern to try this time, a pattern sent to me by SisterStitches. To tell you the truth, I couldn't quite figure out how the block was formed from looking at the pattern, so I had to try it for myself!

It is a variation on a nine-patch, and it goes together really easy--very slick! I love this block, and it is deceptive; the block looks like a lot of cutting and piecing of different sizes of fabrics, but it's not at all! I simply cut blocks all the same size for this quilt.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me at the "sew-a-thon," so I can't show you the quilt in progress. But the photo below may help a little.

Above you see a finished block. The block started out with nine squares (all the same size) of fabric. I sewed it into a nine-patch, then cut the whole block into four pieces. The first cut was in half horizontally, and the second cut was in half vertically. If I tell you that the block started out with a red center and gold print in the four corners, does that help any?

There are many different ways you can put these squares together.

The next photo shows the quilt layers being sandwiched together on the floor. It's not a huge quilt, sort of a lap quilt size.

And I love the fabrics. They've been in my quilt stash for quite a while. I bought them as a collection. Wouldn't you know--I had just exactly the right amount of fabric! The maroon-ish fabric has a texture to it, which I like. There is also a matching gold textured fabric, so I used it for the borders.

Now it is all basted and ready to quilt. I think I will do some straight-line quilting, and then put some kind of motif in the larger, gold print squares. I'll keep you updated!

Of course, MisterStitches fell in love with this quilt pattern and colors, so I'll probably have to make another one for him!