Granny Squares!
When Jolene unfurled her Granny Squares quilt last week, I was completely smitten. I mean, weren't you? And, as luck would have it, I had yet to pick a quilt design for this February, when it is my turn to lead the charity quilt project for the Faith circle of do. Good Stitches. After talking with a sweet lady at a local pregnancy crisis center, I decided that our circle would make baby-sized quilts in the Granny Square style to give to the young mothers through the center. Between us all, we're going to make enough blocks for three quilts: one boy, one girl and one gender neutral. In a 3 x 3 setting with a large border, each quilt will be a cute square baby blanket!
The Granny Square quilt design (pattern at Blue Elephant Stitches) is great for using scraps, which makes it a fun choice for our bee. In do. Good Stitches we all work from our own fabric stashes to minimize shipping expenses. It'll be fun to pull together scraps from us all! To keep the background/sashing colors consistent, we're using Kona peony for the girl's quilt, Kona aqua for the boy's quilt and Kona snow for the neutral quilt.
This week I made these four blocks, which really go together so quickly. I did find I needed to be really careful when matching up points on the squares though, so that the seam allowances on the edges are even and sufficient. So, for a bee (where sewing differences between quilters can make assembling a quilt tricky), I'd rate this block quick but not necessarily easy.
I like how this purple/yellow one turned out because the two Granny "rings" are very distinct.
In retrospect the range of value in my choices of brown scraps and teal scraps make those two blocks (on the right) a little weak. Ironically, I was aware of that potential problem when I began these blocks, but I still chose scraps with widely different values for the same ring. It totally shows up more in pictures though, I will say. Hopefully in the finished quilt it'll all look nice. I think it will!
Thanks again to Jolene for this fun pattern. And thanks to the ladies of the Faith circle for your enthusiasm with our new project. I'm really looking forward to putting these baby quilts together!
The Granny Square quilt design (pattern at Blue Elephant Stitches) is great for using scraps, which makes it a fun choice for our bee. In do. Good Stitches we all work from our own fabric stashes to minimize shipping expenses. It'll be fun to pull together scraps from us all! To keep the background/sashing colors consistent, we're using Kona peony for the girl's quilt, Kona aqua for the boy's quilt and Kona snow for the neutral quilt.
This week I made these four blocks, which really go together so quickly. I did find I needed to be really careful when matching up points on the squares though, so that the seam allowances on the edges are even and sufficient. So, for a bee (where sewing differences between quilters can make assembling a quilt tricky), I'd rate this block quick but not necessarily easy.
I like how this purple/yellow one turned out because the two Granny "rings" are very distinct.
In retrospect the range of value in my choices of brown scraps and teal scraps make those two blocks (on the right) a little weak. Ironically, I was aware of that potential problem when I began these blocks, but I still chose scraps with widely different values for the same ring. It totally shows up more in pictures though, I will say. Hopefully in the finished quilt it'll all look nice. I think it will!
Thanks again to Jolene for this fun pattern. And thanks to the ladies of the Faith circle for your enthusiasm with our new project. I'm really looking forward to putting these baby quilts together!