TGIFF: Quilty Fun!

This is one of my favorite sampler designs ever! I made this quilt as part of the Quilty Fun Sew Along. I started this project because I was working on the Texas A&M quilt and I really needed a project with bright colors! I gave this quilt to my mom for Mother's Day.

Quilty Fun Sew Along | Scraps | 67.5"x67.5"

The cutting instructions are available at the The Jolly Jabber, but for block construction you need Lori Holt's book Quilty Fun: Lessons in Scrappy Patchwork. I really love Lori's techniques for working with tiny scraps. Some of the blocks are constructed in a completely different way than I expected. She also included detailed pressing instructions at each step! The projects in the book feature one or more of these blocks in some capacity. There is a Row Along Quilt in the book, as well as ten individual projects. The book is spiral bound, which is great because it lays flat on the table while you work.

I chose to work scraps that were red, yellow, pink, light blue, yellow-green and blue-green. I avoided purple and orange for the most part. The white background is Vintage Modern Dots in Cream, the red border is Baby Jane Hop Skip Fabric in Scarlet and the outer border is Ta Dot in Teal. Ta Dot in Teal is one of my favorite dot prints and I especially love it next to red.

All the blocks are so adorable, but the quarter square triangles are my favorite! I am going through my scraps now so I can make a large quarter square triangle quilt. It will definitely have bigger blocks though!

The hardest part for me was the frame around the bee. The simple blocks (flying geese, squares and quarter square triangles) are the ones I had the hardest time working on in a smaller scale. If I could go back, I would work on the bee block first and all of the frame pieces immediately after.  I think starch would have helped.

There is a lot of detail in this quilt and I uploaded a few more detailed shots to my Flickr account.

The quilt top finishing and backing instructions are at Bee in My Bonnet. I was really tempted to to make a whole fabric backing, but this was a really good opportunity to use some (24!) fat quarters that have been sitting in my closet for a very long time. Many of them are large prints, which I have a difficult time using. I've learned not to buy large prints, except for specific projects!

I love the embroidery details in this pattern!

Large stipple in Aurifil 50wt Dove. I use Dove all the time for quilting and piecing. It blends really well and sometimes it seems like it is taking on the color of the fabric below it.

The binding is Medium Cotton Gingham Red (Riley Blake). Any kind of gingham or gridded binding drives me crazy, but it was perfect for this quilt. I like the chunkiness of the print, especially in contrast with all the tiny prints in the quilt! I chose a red binding to match the inner border.

There is a Flickr group for this quilt along. I love seeing all the different color schemes!

I am still working on the baby quilts! 40 blocks finished for the girl quilt and all the block components are finished for the boy quilt.

I will be linking up with Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio, Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday (which is being hosted at -Slostudio this week) and  Show off Saturday at the Sew Can She blog.