Bren's Playquilt -- Quilt #2

The cobbler's son finally gets a shoe. Or in this case, a super-quick designed, slapped together quilt. Last minute, I decided to ditch the star-quilt top and do a version of Oh Fransson's Simple Modern Baby Quilt. I used the Chick-a-dee, Chick-a-doo quilt kit fabrics that I bought for Bren...in a quilt for him! (Amazing.) They didn't feel so precious anymore, so I figured I should use them up. I added the olive polka-dotted material, and didn't use the solids that were paired with the line the fat quarter pack included (but not in the quilt kit). I had the green from the lion quilt in there, too, but it took over the quilt. The plan was making the finished blocks 9", but ended up squaring the raw blocks to 9.25" which means finished at 8.75"... and the finished quilt is about 43" square. The back was originally just going to be the print plus the green split by a snow stripe, but the square motif looked so much better. The whole thing is bound in Kona Coal, with a little patch of the blue squares from the kit. After staring at it awhile, I realize I could've just used four prints in an appropriately spaced pattern, but oh well. Such is the price to pay for speed. Semi-random distribution of squares.

The front:

The back:

Speaking of speed, the timeline for this quilt:

Sunday (12/13): Agh, star quilt piecing is never going to last being used as a playmat. What fabric to use, aaahhh? Hm, maybe Chick-a-dee. Go shopping, find nothing particularly good (or to augment the Chick-a-dee) for a quilt. Gonna have to use the stash.

Monday: Huh, what pattern? Sketch out cutting diagrams for the Oh Fransson baby quilt. Will alternating the white with the patterns work out okay, since I don't have enough prints?

Tuesday: Looks like it. Start cutting like mad. Half of blocks pieced.

Wednesday: Still sewing like mad.... have most of blocks pieced. Now... position! Ugh. Sew most of front together.

Thursday: Leaving TOMORROW. Decide the quickest backing is not pretty enough. Cut new blocks for backing and sew in between packing. Cut binding. 11pm: baste on carpet. Not recommended, but is only open surface in house. 12am - 4am: quilt like mad. Also, not recommended. Take nap. 8am: wake up, reeeaallly quickly sew on binding, so can hand finish on vacation (which I did, five days later).

In the end, I did finish... through gross neglect of sleep before the trip. Also, don't recommend doing single-fold binding when both free ends aren't sewn to the quilt. But I didn't have to pre-iron it either. But the quilt is finished -- albeit, already in some need of repair. One of the block corners didn't have quite enough seam allowance (maybe I'll just sew over it a few more times) and some of the quilting thread broke. Still, I'm happy with it. Interestingly, it's gotten crinkly and soft before washing -- maybe my previous sandwiching was too good a job?