Grandma's Box of Crayons

Things have been quiet here in The Magpie's Nest for the last couple of weeks. Conditions around here seem to be either feast or famine. What're ya gonna do? That's life.

I still don't have good pictures of the big quilts I finished recently. What I can show you is Grandma's Box of Crayons:

Since it's been a while since I started this project (January of this year as I recall) let me refresh your memory. Inspired by the Rainbow Scrap Challenge I thought I would make one or two Scrappy Trip blocks each month. It didn't work out that way of course. There were months I didn't make any blocks and other times when I couldn't stop making blocks. Mine are 15 inches finished and there are 20 of them.

When it came time to decide on a layout the first challenge was to arrange the colors in a pleasing configuration. That took some doing, let me tell you! Then there was the detail of whether to let the diagonal line of the strongest values in each block fall all the same way...

Or whether to alternate the directions:

The first was too static for my taste so I chose the second option.

My talented son quilted the top for me. We struggled with that decision too. I knew I wanted something curvilinear to contrast with all the straight lines in the piecing but I also wanted something more than just a meander. I love these hearts!

Of course I had to find just the right binding print too.

I've had this one in my stash forever. I think it's an old Hoffman print. After I told her the name of the quilt my daughter said the binding looked like melted crayons. Perfect! I couldn't be happier with this one - which could be why I'm having trouble getting interested in beginning a new quilt project. ;- )