Polka Dot Magic!

The end is near!  My Polka Dot Wonky phase is over for the time being.  With a renewed urgency of using my stash, I was able to whittle down one area of excess.  Polka Dots.  I love polka dots and these fabrics are right up my alley with the bright saturated colors, but it was time.  I said previously (Wonky Baby), that I had wanted to make this quilt for quite some time.  My wish was granted!

WONKY  LAP QUILT
46" X 60"

From orange, tangerine, yellow, magenta - to green, peach, coral and purple!  The combination of those colors are balanced with a scrappy background using neutrals.  



There were a couple things that were planned out while I was making this quilt.  After I pieced the blocks, but before I gave them the 'wonk' treatment, I took advantage of my empty design wall.  By laying out the blocks before hand I could make sure the colors were evenly scattered from top to bottom.  



From there I pulled out my rotating cutting mat, placed a template of painters tape for trimming and went about wonky it up!  My tutorial for making Wonky Blocks shows my process for piecing, cutting and the painters tape template.  I like my blocks to alternate leaning left and right, but not have each one exactly like the other.  Some variations are slight, while others are as wonky as I could go.

    
As you can imagine assembling the rows goes quite fast.  While I had this quilt finished before the Wonky Baby quilt, I set it aside until the quilting mood hit me.



Because I'm using my stash, I thought a pieced backing would be in order.  What better way to quickly consume a stash or scrap pile?!  Pieced backing to the rescue.  

It seems more often than not that my backing selection is always 'this much' too small.  By piecing a vertical or horizontal strip using scraps or orphan blocks is a very good way to expand a back, don't you think?



In the spirit of the wonky block, I quilted wonky lines.  It feels like it's been a long time since I didn't quilt the living daylights out of a quilt, but this one I controlled myself.  It's perfectly perfect or perfectly imperfect...however you want to look at it!  



The final step was the binding of course.  Scrappy all the way!  My itch again has been scratched!



Washed and piled up.  Just the way I like to end when I make a quilt!

When you make a scrappy binding and the colors are clearly different from each other, what color of thread do you use?  One color?  Multiple colors?  I'm a multiple kinda girl, but I'm curious what other people do. 

Back to quilting with dense straight lines on another quilt...

LINKING:

OH SCRAP! ● MAIN CRUSH MONDAY ●  MONDAY MAKING 
MIDWEEK MAKERS ● NEEDLE & THREAD 

PEACOCK PARTY  ● TGIFF ● WHOOP WHOOP FRIDAY

BRAG ABOUT YOUR BEAUTIES ● FINISHED OR NOT FRIDAY  

Pull Up A Chair & Have Some Hot Cocoa

It's crazy how fast the weather can change.  From a perfectly pleasant summer evening, to chilly with a light jacket required night!  Sleeveless to sleeves.  Shorts to pants.  Lawn mower to leaf blower.  All in a blink of an eye!  Or so it seems.

I won't say it's quilt weather.  To me, every day is quilt time!!!!!  I seriously have a quilt by my side 365 days a year.  And I actually use them too!  What about you?  

I will say that I may choose the colors of a quilt depending on the weather.  Spring fever may bring on some lovely bright colors, summer some cool ocean blues.  Which brings me to a couple projects that I have finished to back that theory up!

51" x 72"

The dark chocolate brown paired with the woven stripes is one of my favorite combinations.  The colors become electrified against the dark background.  Kaffe Fasset woven stripes are pretty amazing! Most of the stripes in this quilt is older Kaffe, hard to find now.  I purchased a good bit of it a few years ago, but my stash is dwindling with each project...and I do use these a lot!  

Because the fabric is thinner, I always use spray starch.  Same with Shot Cotton.  I makes it a little more stable and easier to work with.  Unless I'm doing Improv piecing.

The back is Kona Cappuccino and the front is Kona Chocolate.  I machine stitched random wavy lines from top to bottom in a dark brown thread.  For some reason every time I make this quilt, I quilt horizontal wavy lines!  Not sure why.  But I do love it!

As with most of my quilts, I always have a few left over pieces, blocks or panels!  Many times I will add them to the back of the quilt.  If I don't, I tend to immediately make something else so they don't 'go to waste'!  Of course, that usually leads to having to make even more to finish the left-over project...such a viscous circle!

32" x 39"

A sweet little baby quilt was conceived (no pun intended) from those inevitable left overs. Again, chocolate and cappuccino on the front...

...and espresso on the back.  I used a woven stripe for the binding just for something different.  

What size binding does everyone use?  Me, I prefer 2 1/4".  I like it to be a little smaller.  I know 2 1/2" is pretty popular and I use to use that a lot.  Plus, if you use a jelly roll, well why would you cut it down?  Just sayin'!

You can see I machine quilted a geometric design for some of it and decided I had to try some free motion as well.

After finishing these, I wanted to get a couple more pillows put together.  I followed my pillow pattern from the Fresh Quilts feature.  Seriously, I cannot follow patterns...even my own!  Which makes me wonder why I could even think I could write a quilt pattern!!

18" x 18" Khaki

18" x 18" Off-White

Isn't that orchid gorgeous?!  My son got me that for my birthday!  Nothing like a beautiful photo prop and fantasic son!

After seeing all of these pieces together, it reminded me of cocoa!  Yummy, sweet and warm!  

Linking:

FABRIC FRENZY FRIDAY

CAN I GET A WHOOP WHOOP