I have made quite a few quilts over the past few years. Many of them have been very simple, because I have been gravitating toward patterns that settle the mind, rather that ignite it. I am fully capable of challenging patterns and designs, some of which I plan to share as I begin to ‘unfold’ again into social media and such. It feels so good to be back, with a solid mindset of productivity. I hope to inspire a few of you to pick things up again if you also feel like you had put things on a shelf for another day, which then turned into another year or more.

Having finished a few really fun quilts for guys, I found that I had a decent amount of leftover scraps. This was not a big surprise. Actually, it’s par for the course, I am afraid. Maybe, instead of talking about this quilt, I should have started with the ones that produced the scraps for this one. Doing things backwards is in my blood, though, so lets just go with it.

It began as it usually does, with a pile of scraps left over from another project that coordinates so well that I refuse to throw them in the garbage. Sometimes I wish that I would get the minimalist bug, but my brain would just get bored with the nothing and end up with something within about 30 minutes. I won’t explain myself. I will simply share my madness.

Here, you can see that I have a variety of cut-up plaid shirts, quilting cotton, and batiks, In a range of mostly blue, turquois, and green. I stayed on that one corner of the color wheel and it seemed to work out just fine. Most of these scraps were small, so i just sewed a bunch of them together, improv-style, until I got pieces that measured 3 1/2 inches square, not yet knowing what I was going to do with them.

This is what they started looking like as I sewed. I didn’t worry too much about contrast or too much of one color or another, but I did try to vary the type of fabric within each square, such as a batik sewn to a plaid, or quilting cotton to a batik, etc.

Most of the squares looked like these. I only did vertical and horizontal lines, but I think a stray diagonal would have been fantastic too.

I kept sewing until I had a few stacks like this, still not knowing what to do with them…until I was inspired by a really cool pattern that I will link HERE

I will disclose that I do not know Catherine at Running Doe personally, but I would be shocked if we haven’t met as she is from the same part of Texas as I. I receive no royalties or kick-backs by sending you to her amazing site full of super easy patterns that are easy on the pocketbook. At writing, this one is $2.00. She does long-arm quilting too, so I will have to make another post relatively soon regarding that part of her business. I have some in the works, Catherine! Watch for me.

Anyway, I bought her pattern at a local quilt shop at first site, because I thought it would be a good idea for these squares, so I used it for inspiration, and didn’t follow her measurements, since I was already starting with smaller squares. My adaptation made a baby size quilt, hers makes a much bigger quilt. I just know that I will be making her original version eventually, because I just really love this block so much. It is such a great design for a guy quilt.

What I ended up doing here, is I added one fabric that is the same in all of the cross blocks to ‘pull’ the scrap squares together visually, and I did all of the math to figure out how much background fabric that I would need for sashing and borders, then I repeated that same background fabric in the middle cross to make those blocks look like they are just floating on the background.

This is what the blocks looked like once I finished sewing what I had left. Once I got the quilt top all together, I sent it to www.quiltingbydavid.com who I have used multiple times in the past. I really need to get comfortable quilting on my domestic Janome, but that will take some practice and determination on my part. Lets see what is in store for me in the future. Hand quilting, yes, but I couldn’t possibly hand quilt all of my quilts in my lifetime. Longarm quilters are true gifts from God. Thank you to all who provide this service.

In closing, I ask you if YOU ever just start projects, not knowing how it will end up looking. What is your most common source of inspiration? Do you have to know what you are making before you begin, or do you piddle around like I do, until you find a path?

I have missed you all! I am so glad to be back sharing again. Have a great week!

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