Easter Monday

Last fall I found myself making a Halloween quilt shortly after Halloween. The pattern is repeating itself this spring.

I know I haven't shown it to you yet but the Dr. Seuss quilt top is complete, and I caught up on my Bead Journal Project as much as I could over the weekend. So this morning I found myself without a specific project to work on. I was toying with the idea of making some string blocks when this UFO popped into my head:

If you double click on the picture above you should be able to see that there are Easter prints in the wacky log cabin blocks. Better yet, here's a detail shot:

The blocks were created when my children were in grade school. I don't even want to think about how long ago that was! Most of the blocks were made in a class. Eventually I made enough to create this top, which measured about 37" x 49" when I pulled it out this morning.

I've pulled this out before, thinking I might make more blocks to make it bigger. I could never quite get up the confidence to do that I guess, and the top always went back into the closet. Today when I put it up on the design wall I could see, all of a sudden, what to do without having to make more blocks.

I decided to treat the whole top as a giant log cabin block and went round the four sides with one inch strips one more time, yellow on two sides and pink on the other two.

I'd been hanging onto some yardage of one of the prints used in the original set of blocks. At this point I got that out to see how I could put it to use. I debated whether to use it to create a pieced border of some sort but first I tried it as a wide border.

No, that's not good enough. But the prints is large enough to work as a border and I wasn't really wanting to spend a lot of time piecing a fancy border. Maybe another strip to frame up the interior?

I auditioned several colors and prints. Nothing really worked for me until I came across this stripe. It doesn't appear in any of the blocks but it works with everything else. And it did a great job of separating the border (the bunny print you see above) from the blocks.

It's still a small quilt, only 49" x 61" or so, but it's bright and fun. Once I get a back made for it and get it quilted/tied it will live quite happily with my four granddaughters who are also bright and fun (read loud and busy!). Maybe in time for next Easter? ;- )