Swatch Book and New Quilt Top

I really like solid fabrics.  And Connecting Threads online fabric shop has a great selection of solids, mirage, and basic prints in their Quilter's Candy.  They are good quality, reasonably priced, easy to work with, and pretty!

I bought several charm packs, and some yardage, and went crazy, and created a swatch book.  That way, I'm sure I'm getting the right color when I order.  30 pages later....

This definitely says something about my personality :)  But I love it!

Afterwards, I had a lot of charm squares, and decided to make a quilt with them.  Since they were so many different colors, I decided to try 9-patch blocks alternating with X pattern blocks in a lattice design.

Is it too wild?  I'm still not sure how I feel about it, because its SO different from my usual quilts, but I think when it's finished and quilted, it'll be really nice.  If not, I'll make the 9 patches a solid center section for another quilt, and use the X's with more subtle colors

What do you do with your charm squares?

Mary

Paper Piecing WIP - Great Balls of Fire!

This paper pieced quilt top isn't finished, but I wanted to share it.  I haven't done paper piecing in a while, and really enjoy it, even though it's "messy" -- lots of little pieces of paper and fabric!

The Great Balls of Fire quilt pattern was featured in Quiltmaker Magazine issue #129 way back in 2009, but I found the free block patterns online, and then ended up getting the old issue to get all of the instructions. The design has a subtle circular pattern that I really liked.  Can you see it in the blue?

The quit in the pattern is green red, tan and orange, but I wanted to do more "beach" colors, so I used shades of green, blue and tan.  OOPS!  I didn't realize that the blues and greens were too much the same value until I had made several blocks, and didn't want to stop and start over!

So I got creative!  I used fabric paint to shade some of the blue pieces darker (I may add some more dark blue like the center).  To bring out the circular blue design, I plan to use thread painting and quilting. The green border was pieced, don't know why that wasn't paper pieced also, but worked out..

The quilt is about 50" x 50", and I'm thinking of adding a border to make it larger.  I thought maybe it would help the blue design show up more.

What do you think of the blue fabric on the left as a border?  Too blue?

I'll definitely post more when I get this one done!

Mary

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Pink

I'm trying something new -- the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This looks like fun, and what a good way to use up those scraps!  Go to Scraphappy's page and take a look at the Linky where everyone has posted their projects.

I certainly have plenty of scraps!

My quilt for today is a UFO that I'm determined to finish. I quilted it, and something happened, and the outside border was really crooked :(. So I cut off all of the outside borders, and am starting again from the 20" square center. Since I have already quilted the center, This seems like a great time to use the quilt-as-you-go technique, so we'll see what happens!

Mary