Despite the patchwork slog session earlier in the week (see my recent post, ‘Patchwork isn’t always fun!’) my sew-jo is alive and kicking! Revived by a super-quick, minimum mess, squirrel of a project 👍

A quilt top finished within two days! Inspired by an email from Nicola Dodd of CakeStand Quilts. Nicola has created a great variety of patterns – some are whole quilts, some individual blocks – and every month she discounts one pattern and labels it her Pattern of the Month. The April Pattern of the Month is called ‘Day Out’ and caught my eye as it is a gingham/plaid patchwork design, a style which always appeals to me – I think it’s the combination of symmetry with varying depths of colour in a limited palette. So I bought, downloaded and printed the pattern… Then, in all the confusion of creating borders and backing for the Spider Web & Stars quilt, I began scrabbling around in my stash to find suitable fabrics in more-or-less the required quantities for a ‘Day Out’ quilt! No wonder my sewing room got in such a muddle! This must count as a major meander, I blush to recall it now, having stated how hard I committed to staying focussed on completing the scrappy Spider Web quilt top 🤭

Anyhow! The ‘Day Out’ meander didn’t scupper the Spider Web project (the top and backing are completed – I just need a bit of breathing space to think about the quilting design). In fact it turns out a speedy, enjoyable piecing project was just what I needed.  And look at my room, a whole quilt top completed, and it looks as though almost nothing had been going on since the big post-Spider Web tidy-up!

Of course the making of the Day Out quilt top wasn’t quite as simple as it could have been. All the fabrics were drawn from my stash, so there were a few compromises to be made. Most particularly the plain green. A bit bright maybe (?) and not quite the right quantity to make all nine large blocks.

The background fabric is quite pinky-beige on the right side so I chose to use the reverse side as a better match for the other fabrics in the quilt.

A very cute fabric from the A Winter Nap range by Lewis & Irene

I made six of the larger blocks and five of the six smaller blocks from the pattern. Then I used the fabrics I had left to make extra strips to place around the edges. I managed to keep the symmetry of the pattern although you may have noticed the blocks along the top and bottom edges of the quilt are only half height. There wasn’t enough of the Winter Nap fabric to have whole squares top and bottom.

I think they look OK – to my mind it’s better to have the continuity in the pattern even if those blocks are smaller versions of the full size ones on the left and right edges of the quilt top. With these changes to Nicola’s pattern my Day Out quilt top measures 53″ x 63″ rather than 60″ square.

This morning I nipped out to HobbyCraft (just a 10 minute walk from home) and bought some bright green fabric to use as the backing. I’m glad I decided to pre-wash the fabric – the Colour Catcher tells it’s own story!

I plan to quilt a straightforward vertical-horizontal tramline design over the blocks in-keeping with the gingham/plaid patchwork pattern.

There’s enough remaining of these two fabrics to make the binding…

I think this speedy project deserves a link to Denise’s Put Your Foot Down Thursday link up!

Allison