Today is the last day of the 30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Days Blog Hop hosted by Carla of Creatin' In The Sticks in which I have enjoyed participating with the other bloggers by presenting a project made from one of the blocks and by making all of the 30 blocks somehow. I'm glad I was able to finish my quilt to celebrate the end of the blog hop.
The month of April has been crazy in terms of the weather we had; snow, ice, rain, wind, etc. all unseasonable for Spring but must have been good for my quilt output because I was going subconsciously for a five for five or a quintuplet of quilt final finishes. It seems that anything I sewed turned into quilts which is a nice superpower to have and the only time I seem to have possessed it was when I had to make a number of baby quilts for the Blanket Ministry in a short period of time which was expected and not unexpected like my April quilts were. Or it could be another instance of hexing myself, but in a good way, when I say or write something, the opposite will happen and in this case, I mentioned that I thought my 2018 production so far was lacking.
For my thirty blocks, I decided to use a stash of fat eighths and some light yardage of Zen Chic's Hey Dot which has sitting idle for awhile and as you can see above I still have some leftover. I deviated from the original quilt by not using the same background fabric in all of the blocks or lights were excluded from some of the blocks. I have to admit, but you probably could figure out, that I did not make the block of the day on the assigned day but rather made them in groups of five and one time I made ten blocks in one evening because I needed to catch up. All of the blocks sewed up fast and it was very easy to make more than one at a time. I ended up finishing my blocks ahead of schedule and decided that I would finish the quilt by the end of the month to coincide with the end of the blog hop.
And another admission which sort of contradict my statement that all of the blocks sewed up fast which is that #29 Block-Dovetail had sixteen 1-3/4" x 4-1/4" strips for two rail blocks which I decided not to do because I still had a one-eighth piece of this funky stripe left and thought it had the same essence of the dovetail strips. So I guess, if you sewed #29 like I did, then all of the blocks do sew up fast.
The blocks were arranged by block number for the quilt. It helped that after I made each block, I placed it on my design board to ensure that the colors were evenly spread throughout the quilt.
If there was any indecisions for this quilt, it would be for the quilting and for the backing. I couldn't decide at first if I was going to do straight line or curvy line quilting and settled on horizontal straight line but then after sewing the top I realized that vertical curvy line would look better. And for the backing, they say three times the charm and after choosing two other possible backings I decided on this wonderful yellow patchwork print with stripes and dots which helped me to choose lemon yellow thread for the quilting. If there's a lesson to be learned, it's to buy additional yardage when buying precuts for the binding and sadly I did not have any Hey Dot yardage which I could use (I don't do scrappy binding) but I did have this gray plaid dot in my stash.
Have I mentioned how much fun I had making these blocks. This is definitely a fun and happy quilt. It measures 50" X 60" and each block finishes 10" square. While I was making the blocks, I thought it could easily be renamed 30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Hours and thought it would make a great quilt marathon where the quilters stayed up for at least 30 hours straight to make these blocks but there would need to be some safety rules like no rotary cutters or scissors could be used after the eighth hour. But, I thought better and decided it would instead really be a fun quilt guild project for each member to draw the number of the block they're to make and #29 is the block you don't want if you don't like cutting odd sizes.
And you can guess who's going to receive this quilt to go with her new play porch? Yes, my sweet granddaughter Micah whose mother worked very hard this past weekend to put it together but to my quilt horror took a photo of Micah with her Christmas quilt (which I won't show) in her play porch. It's also time Micah receives a new quilt because Sandra, MMM Quilts mentioned to me that she thought I needed to make a 1-1/4 year old quilt for her but it's too early so Dot Is Crazy will be her 1-1/8 year old quilt.
And in case you didn't see my post for my Jungle Crosswalk quilt made from Block #22, you can read about it HERE. If you're looking for a quick and easy quilt to make, a lot of these block patterns could be used. Be sure to check out the 30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Days Link.
I don't know if I can keep up this momentum for May but I do know that I'm ready for my next QAL, MMM Quilts Adult Playtime Plus QAL. My fabric has been chosen and instructions will be posted next week. And I know there's a couple of projects which need finishing or starting lurking in my studio but then again we're going to have some nice 70 to 80 degree weather this week and the garden centers are filling up with flowers. I'm pretty sure we're finally going to experience Spring or Too Soon Summer now and I'm really hoping I'm not hexing myself again if snow happens to appear next week.
Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation, Needle and Thread Thursday, Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish It Up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday, Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday
