Playing around with Layer Cakes...

Occasionally  I make a mental list of quilts I want to make and the order I want to make them in...and then out of the blue I get an idea and the list is totally forgotten...like my sainted Father use to tell me "you bounce around like a BB in a boxcar''....so true! And this is where my bouncing has taken me...

I snagged a bargain on a layer cake of Momo's Neco collection...lots of lovely good sized prints that I didn't want to chop up too much. I saw a part of a quilt that looked similar to this, somewhere out there in blogland and decided to make it work for me.

I cut the layer cakes in half so they measured 5 x 10" in a landscape fashion. Then I searched my stash and found some left over Robert Kaufman Quilter's Linen in a lovely gold color for the squares. I went together very quickly and it measures about 70 x 72 inches... a nice size throw. I love the colors of this line... to me it has a retro 70's vibe... do you remember Harvest Gold, Avocado Green, Coppertone Brown?  My Mom LOVED these colors and painted every room in our house with these latest hip colors in 1969. I still have fond memories of her with paint in her hair... tired by very pleased with her work.

Aren't these prints groovy??? BIG dots and dogs running free and polka dot trees... kinda psychedelic...

More running dogs and cats and what I'm referring to as hedgehogs...

Now they may actually be porcupines but I have a deep seated dislike of porcupines ever since that time when I was 10 years old and I came within inches of stepping on one in my bare feet...scared the bejesus out of me!

I really like the way this turned out and I will use this pattern again... it used almost the entire layer cake... I think I may have 1 square left over, so it shows off the entire collection nicely.

And then I saw a picture on Instagram of a quilt in a booth at the big trade show the other week and it had a rectangular Shoofly looking block. I was curious if I could make a block like this using a 10" square from a layer cake. Now,  I have a great pattern by Loft Creations called  String Beans that you can see here... I've made this pattern before and you can see my version here...It is an easy pattern and in thinking about it, you can probably make  a block with a 10" square but it wasn't the proportion I was looking for this time around.  I wanted a fatter Shoofly block... so I putzed around and came up with these blocks...

I started by cutting that middle piece 5 1/2" wide by 10" long... then I made half square triangles for the corners that finish 2"... I like how it looks but the block ending up being  an odd measurement of 9" wide by 13.5" high finished.. oh I am NOT a pattern maker...LOL!  Anyway it will work for me... I'm not sure how big a quilt this will be as I have enough problem figuring out how big a quilt will be with square blocks...rectangular blocks have me totally baffled. I will go old school and graph it out and then I'll have a better idea of the size of the quilt I'll be making... maybe... I just want to make a lap/throw size quilt using one layer cake and some background fabric.

These fabrics are from a  collection called Blueberry Park... I keep thinking Blueberry Hill and hear Richie Cunningham singing "I found my thrill..."  oh my mind is a very strange place. Here are the colors I haven't cut yet...

I read somewhere that this collection starts with Kona solids and is over printed with the graphic white designs... I am sooo NOT a solids gal no matter how pretty they are but this really appeals to me. This is the Cool line of Blueberry Hill... I mean Park... there is also a Bright line and a Neutral line.  The fabrics in the upper right corner are a very dark navy blue... I may leave them out of this quilt.

So I bounced from one thing to another but I'm happy with where I landed.  Lately I've been having a very good time in my sewing room. I got two tops off to Terry my long arm quilter 2 weeks ago, and I may have another two tops for her this week. I was even motivated to get out a top that only needs borders and I have them cut...just need to attach them and get the backs together...oh I am being soooo productive... along with telling me I bounced like a BB, my sainted Father also use to tell me I was a fantastic starter but on a mediocre finisher... he may be right about that too. But now and then I do get motivated to go back and finish what I started... my robust stash of UFO's always has something that needs to be completed!

Well, I've got a busy week ahead... something going on every day...so while right now I'm raring to go and sew sew sew, we'll have to see if I really get the time to do that... keeping my fingers crossed. Hope your week has some sewing time in it!

happy stitching-
carol fun