Auction Quilt for Shakespeare Northwest

Sorry to keep you all waiting for a new post. I do have something new to share, and really meant to do so before now. What can I say? There have been a few days when I've felt like this:

And then there was a day or so of mourning for this tree across the street that apparently had to come down.

It was a favorite place for the crows to perch inbetween their efforts to harvest and crack the nuts from another local tree. sigh Hopefully the property owners will see fit to replace the old tree with a new one.

But you're probably more interested in what's been going on here in The Magpie's Nest. ;- )

Just as I was finishing up Strips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails I learned of an auction to support our annual Shakespeare Festival. I only had about a month to create something to donate so the first thing I did was get into my Parts Department and put some liberated log cabins on the wall. I started out with a strippy format, columns of blocks that I was going to separate with other blocks and maybe some yardage. That didn't seem to be working very well so I mushed all the blocks together to create a central panel.

Right away that felt like a more viable direction to take. The overall goal was to make something that could be used on the ground as a  picnic quilt. Our Shakespeare Festival takes place outside in a natural amphitheater and seating is bring your own.

The super scrappy center will help to disguise dirt and food stains. I added the flying geese units around it to allow me to expand the top with alternating six inch blocks and whole cloth squares.

As it turned out, I ended up using only Shoo Fly blocks. I did go out and purchase yardage for the alternate squares, just so there would be something new and fresh in the quilt. It's a stylized dandelion print that's part of the Wrenly line from Valori Wells and Free Spirit.

I had to turn the whole thing upside down on the design wall to figure out block placement for the fourth side.

In all it only took me about four days to assemble this quilt top. In the next post you'll see that I've added a border all around the perimeter. And in case anyone is taking notes, I have started quilting the Dr. Seuss quilt for the library. It's about 80- 85% done at this point. Just have to figure out how to deal with one of the bigger blocks and the filler bits. So far, so good!