A few weeks ago I recieved this snuggly bundle of fabrics in the mail from http://www.fabricshack.com/
I recently found out that you can fit four yards of flannels in a $13-ish envelope (from the US) and set about working out how to get something special using as many prints as possible. I played with a simple design and then spent a bit of time online picking out fabrics. Jack joined in and narrowed down the selection, and we ended up with 1 yard of the bright stripe fabric, and 1/4 yard of each of 12 different novelty prints.
I spent a few hours one Saturday cutting and the rest of the weekend sewing, pressing and trimming and ended up with a completed quilt top. The best part is that the whole quilt top cost less than $40, including the cost of fabric postage.
Here it is laid out on a queensize bed. Jack calls it his 'new kilt'.
The top turned out a bit larger than I had imagined, but it looks like a perfect size to use on a single bed instead of just as a throw/lap quilt as I had planned.
The four yards were cut rather generously so I managed 9.5 inch squares from each fabric, with only a small strip of each remaining. The stripe fabric worked really well for the sashing and there is only a very tiny scrap left over.
Jack's favorites are the 'Rescue' range - the multi prints of fire engines, police cars, trucks etc. There is one with a blue background and one with a beige background in the quilt, and they were very thick, soft, rich fabrics - lovely to sew with.
I was a bit disappointed with the Riley Blake (2 x green car prints) and the Michael Miller (black multicolour owls and black icecream prints) fabrics as they were much thinner. The colours and designs are great but they were harder to handle and I'm worried they won't wear as well.
I'm busy picking fabrics for the back from my rather large stash of novelty cottons. I need to go on a search and rescue mission to find the ones Jack has pilfered from the pile over the last few days.
The back will be a crazy-ish random eye-spy creation and the binding will most likely be a plain solid colour. I'm thinking of either quilting in the ditch or in a diagonal grid pattern.
Hopefully I'll have the backing completed this weekend and will be able to get it sandwiched and quilted by the end of the month.
