Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? A Tale of Two Quilts...

Hi, all!

Wow!  How did Friday get here so fast!  But it's here, and you know what that means - it's time for us to get our whoop whoop on!  Are you ready?  I know I am (barely, by the skin of my teeth) so let's get started!

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These words kept rolling through my head as I worked on my most recent finish(es).  You know how sometimes quilts just name themselves? Well, this blogpost did just that - "A Tale of Two Quilts"!  And here's the full story....

You may remember the t-shirt quilt I wrote about last week, and my reference to the well-loved plaid comforter that is part of it.  It was originally intended to be the back of that quilt, but the fabric was so fragile that it was unsuitable.  I put part of it on the front of the quilt, but saved the rest to be used in a baby quilt which will be tucked away until needed!

Thankfully, t-shirt interfacing works just as well stabilizing stretchy or fragile fabrics, so the pieces of the comforter should hold up well in this quilt.

You can see how nicely it's coming along - pinwheels and focal fabric blocks, both turned into snowball blocks with the addition of white corners.  But when I started sewing the blocks together...

See how pucker-y the pinwheel block is where it matches the plaid block?  I couldn't figure out how in the world that was happening, because I had squared the snowball/pinwheel blocks up to the same measurement as the plaid blocks.  I knew I could "quilt it out", so to speak, so I continued on, easing the slight fullness in as I went.  But as I was sewing the last row together, it occurred to me where my problem started.  I had squared up the pinwheel blocks AFTER I sewed on the snowball corners, instead of squaring the pinwheels, then sewing on the snowball corners.   And of course, now that I knew what the problem was, and that I could fix it pretty easily - I had enough fabric to remake the pinwheel/snowball blocks - I knew I wouldn't be happy with the quilt unless I did.  And so begins the tale of two quilts!

The first step involved reducing the quilt back to a stack of blocks - but a pretty afternoon outside made that a not-so-onerous task! Making the new pinwheel/snowball blocks was easy too, and this time I remembered to square up before adding the snowball corners.  I don't think I'll ever forget that step again!

Assembly of the quilt top went much easier the second time, with no need to ease any fabric in.  The corners all matched up like magic!  Some pretty intense quilting, and this baby (quilt) was done!

I made this quilt using the Prairie Pinwheel Baby Quilt Tutorial by The Cloth Parcel, available for free on BluPrint.  It's an easy tutorial, although I think it's missing some steps (like squaring up!) and has at least one error that I caught, but nothing drastic.  It was my first experience with prairie points, and they were fun!

I used each of the solids and the plaid from the quilt top for the prairie points, and a nice "etch-a-sketch" print for the border.  It pulls the underlying color from the plaid nicely, I think!

Lots and lots of swirly quilting makes for a huge amount of texture in this quilt!  

And of course, what could be better than that favorite sheet for the back?  It blends so nicely with the colors on the front, and with the piece I chose for the border and binding!

But wait - - - I told you it was a tale of TWO quilts, didn't I?  Well, I had that pile of blocks and it seemed a shame to just put them in the orphan block tub... and I needed to make a quilt for the Patchwork and Pillowcases quilt drive, to go to the Socorro Foundation.  So....

This cute little baby quilt was born!  I used all sixteen blocks I made - which made me feel good because the quilt pattern only used fifteen of the sixteen (why did it have me make an extra? I don't know!)

I actually quilted this one first, so I could try out the swirlies and be sure the tension on my machine was correct before I started on the customer quilt.  I love this texture!

And isn't that spring green binding sweet?  I love that color, and I'm almost out of it.  Looks like a shopping trip is in order!

 

And I'm happy to say I found the perfect backing lurking in my stash - and that splash of orange makes my heart sing!  

So that's my "Tale of Two Quilts" - - - can I get a whoop whoop?

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And now it's your turn!

What's got you whooping it up this week?

What's making you do a little happy dance?

Share!  We want to dance right along with you,

And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight.

Hope to see you there!

Hugs!

Sarah