Yep! Finished. The idea came from one of the kaffe fasset’s books – a little all-blue quilt made of shirting fabrics. I did not have as many blue striped fabrics, but I had plenty of striped fabrics in variety of colors.

This one took longer than I expected. First of all – it took longer to piece the squares. These were made from strips of white fabric sewn together with strips of striped fabrics. The stripes were then cut into triangles – 8 triangles for each combined, to make 2 squares – one with the white square in the middle, one with a white stripe on the outside, around the square. Since there was a lot of sewing on the bias, and the fabrics were really all different, some stretchier than other. This resulted in squares of all different sizes, so I had to trip them all dowm to 8in sq.

Arranging the squares was really quite fun and I really liked the result.

Quilting, ahhh quilting. That took longer than expected too. I quilted diagonally, both sides of seams. And then, since the squares were large, I quilted squares inside the squares made by quilting lines. And the fabric was stretching. And stretching. But I could do nothing. Or I did not know what to do. Anyway, quilting is done and is it as it is. I like it.

This is the first time I patched the back of the quilt, too. Here I used up some of the left over squares. Well, they were not really left over. They were a mistake. And that’s also why making these blocks took so long. After I planned the quilt, picked all the fabrics, I started cutting. And sewing the strips together. And cutting the triangles. And then when I put the triangles together to see what they looked like I realized I  made a mistake. A mistake cutting the striped fabric. It seems that stripes always run along the length of the fabric, not across the width. I needed to cut lengthwise, but I was just cutting as I always do. So I ended up with these scraps that I used for the back (if you look closely, you can see that stripes do not run paralel to the sides of the squares, like on the front). I think I was watching Rescue Me while I did this. Distracted much?

I don’t know what to call this quilt – but it’s done. I started working on it early August, and it did take some time to have it quilted – mostly because the blocks were hanging on the wall while I was trying to figure out whether the whole thing will work or not. Then it grew on me so I decided to finish it. And then…. after I quilted it, it sat some time waiting to be bound. That hapened yesterday, and here it is. All done, photographed, washed, photographed again. Now it will be a matter of minutes before the dog figures out where it is. This quilt is for our sofa (otherwise the dog would not be able to get to it).

The design (my own) called for 8 blocks per row. The idea is to use 16 different fabrics – 8 for the main fabric (the outer strips of each block) and 8 for the middle strip. That’s the first row. For the second row, I switched the main with the middle strip fabric for each block. Third row is same as the first row, except that I switched the middle fabric around – combined with different main fabric. In fourth row I switched main and middle fabric of each block from third row. And so on… That way I didn’t have 2 blocks with the same fabric combination.

All that said, I do have a little correction…. I did not really have 16 different fabrics. That was the idea, but I just could not find matching fabrics in my stash. However, some of the fabrics I used were floral prints or striped fabrics that if I cut a certail way, I woud basically have different fabrics, or patterns. That’s why some of the blocks look like they have more strips – that’s just an illusion – it’s just striped fabrics, cut differently for each block.

As I mentioned, it took a while for me to figure out whether this will work or not. There is no solid white fabric, anywhere in this quilt. Colors are really bright and somewhat dark… definitely out of my comfort zone. So, it took more time to arrange the block, rearrange them and then learn to live with them, than actual cutting. Even though, some of the fabrics were a pain, since I had to find cut around the prints to get the colors I wanted.

I wanted it to be thick but light and I had some pink fleece lying around so I used that for batting. As for the quilting – I quilted diagonally thrugh each square, and then around the border. Pretty uneventfull.

All in all I am pretty satisfied with it. It will go perfectly with our sofa. It is super soft (and wrinkly like it should be after the wash – see below) and I am afraid that the dog might claim it…