My First Finish of 2020!

After being somewhat unhappy with my Trio of Random Sister's Choice quilts, I decided to use the rest of my 9 patches for something completely different. You'll be seeing several very similar quilts in this pattern with different colors.

I alternated the 9 patches with half-square triangles/quarter square triangles in a diamond layout. The recipient's nursery, according to her dad, was "all colors and especially purple." So I chose 4 different purples of different shades and arranged them in lighter and darker bands around the center for contrast.

I quilted with freehand swirls with hearts mixed in. I tried to get at least one heart per 9 patch and per purple triangle. I wrote "love" in cursive on the center block 3 times but forgot that I loaded the quilt in my frame sideways so the words are sideways on the finished quilt. I'm a little peeved at myself for that but the recipient's mom saw it and thought it was special and didn't notice or care about the sideways words...so I guess I shouldn't either.

First pass complete on the frame

Detail of the center block

Oh, and totally accidental awesome moment: I used a striped binding and had the closest pattern match happen without trying at all. Made me smile.

I couldn't have gotten this close if I tried!

I realized, as I was adding binding, that one of my corners was scant and needed me to patch some fabric to cover the batting. I made it a 'humility corner' and patched it with the fabric I had immediately had handy instead of cutting off a piece of the purple that was short. I kind of like how it looks, a reminder that nobody is perfect.

Humility Corner

Completed quilt photos:

Front of quilt

One of my better hearts

Label

Another decent heart

Center block's sideways "love love love"

For fabric purchases, I'm going to go ahead and count both purchases I have made this year by time of publishing this post. I purchased 4 yards of Essential Dots Chocolate Yardage for a backing on my Nice Nice Niece Quilt (top is complete and in my to-be-quilted pile) and 3 yards of Kona Ash for sashings in a new Mod Mosaic Quilt.

My goal for this year is to use more than I add to my stash. I'll be back in the black next week, I'm not worried.

2020 Stash Report:

Fabric used this week: 5.5 yards
Fabric used year to date: 5.5 yards
Fabric purchased this week: 7 yards
Fabric purchased year to date: 7 yards
Net fabric for 2020: (1.5 yards added)

Final Finish of 2019: A Brother's Coordinated Quilt

If you may recall, I made a "Twig Cabin" quilt for my first son back in 2016-2017. I realize that I never posted a finished picture of it, so this is going to be a post combining both quilts.

Twig's quilt was a 'streaks of lightning' layout of log cabin blocks. I backed it with an adorable print I had bought in Korea.

Blues, greens, oranges, and browns

These foxes are just adorable

When I had a second little boy ("Sprout"), I knew I wanted to do another log cabin block quilt in the same colors, but wanted it to be different still. I chose to do an on-point square illusion layout. I had to do more planning about what colors would be where, but I like the look it has.

Same block layout and size, but totally different look

Birch and bird backing

Since the first quilt had a green birch forest and blue binding I found a blue birch forest fabric and used a green binding on the second quilt to further differentiate the quilts.

Loaded on the frame, ready to go!

Freehand swirls and hearts <3

love

you

Tree binding

I've definitely gotten more adventurous with my longarm quilting. I still don't know that I'd call myself more than a confident beginner, but I'm getting there.