Wake Up, Sleepy Blog!

Yes, I've been neglecting the blog for the past two months. No post November, I guess.

There was a quilt finish during the time I've been away:

"Tone it Down" was from an APQ quiltalong several years back based on the low-volume Burgoyne Surrounded quilt in the Feb. 2014 issue. Designed by Lissa Alexander, I believe.

 I just loved all the pastels and bright colors against the low-volume backgrounds, and I used many of my vintage sheets and some of my reclaimed shirtings. It was a fiddly quilt, where I laid out each block with dozens of different fabrics before piecing it, but it was a completely happy quilt to piece.

 It's 75x93", seems to fit a full size bed pretty well.

 I used Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User's System idea of 10.5" blocks pieced together for the backing. I had cut a big stack of fabrics up into these sizes and used them all up for this backing and the one I pieced to go with my Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt, which will maybe be the next one to go on the quilting machine.

 I now have three finished quilts that I plan to give to my sisters and step-mother this month. En Provence above...

And Grand Illusion. That's three quilts quilted this fall and I'm pretty happy about that. Of course, it's just in time for the start of the next Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt-along, "Frolic", which you can find at the link. I've been hooked on these since 2011 and Orca Bay. It and Allietare are still on my bed, I gave away Easy Street, Celtic Solstice and soon the two above, and On Ringo Lake and Good Fortune are waiting to be quilted.

 Frolic is supposed to evoke the happy feeling of a field of Texas wildflowers under a clear aqua sky. I have a lot of scraps in the blue colorways, which I think of as "China blue." They are blues, light and dark, with just a hint of heading to the purple end of the spectrum.

 "Framboise" is the rasberry color that makes this quilt pop. I don't have a lot of fuchsia pinks in my stash and since the three quilts just finished all had pink in them, I wanted to make a less obviously girly quilt... so I am probably going for closer to "cranberry" or "cherry" or "watermelon" with a bit of "burgundy wine" mixed in, but I'm not opposed to a bit of pink. All of my reds have to not be leaning toward orange, but maybe a bit toward purple.

 I have plenty of greens in that yellow-leaning, grass-green shade. I am a little short of aquas. I love the little skull and crossbones on that one but I'm not sure how appropriate it would be. I do want to use what I have, but that is the one color in the mix I am tempted to supplement. I thought about changing the colors, but decided to go with Bonnie's.

Here is so far on Clue #1. Lots of cute little 4-patches. They are so fun to make! I do love a variety of scraps in every quilt I make. I am trying to cut an extra strip or two for my Scrap User's System every time I have to cut a piece of fabric. That way I can use up some of the smaller and older pieces in my stash and replenish the variety in my strips. And if I impulsively decide to start a new quilt, I go to those strip boxes first. Of course, that does mean the quilting process is messy and there are scraps ALL OVER my sewing area!

That's the news on the quilting front! I'll be linking up to Bonnie's show-and-tell post on Monday when it goes live. You can check out what other quilters are doing with this pattern, and join the Frolic festivities!