10 Sep Almost a top!

I’m excited to say that my leader and ender scrap project is now almost a quilt top!  All the blocks are made.  It has officially graduated from a leader/ender project to one that needs a little time of its own to get finished. The photo here is of the blocks on my design wall (sorry about the bad light!).  The plan calls for a pieced border to be added as well and the three-square strips for that have also been completed.

I’m a little disappointed that the design doesn’t show up that well.  In my eagerness to use all my neutral and blue scraps, I let some of the lights get too dark and some of the darks get too light.  Still, for a quilt that I made in practically no time except for scrap cutting, I’m pretty happy.  It may not be the most striking quilt I’ve made, but it was made with love and will keep a child at SafeHouse warm for a long time.

(Some of you may recall that the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild donates quilts to SafeHouse domestic violence shelter.  Each person who visits SafeHouse receives a quilt that they take with them when they leave.  These quilts must be at least 60″ x 80″).

As we quilters know, we often start another project before finishing the one (or more!) that we are currently working on.  When I saw Thomas Knauer’s Abecedarian Quilt Along, I couldn’t resist joining in!  Thomas has designed a quilt that features 26 blocks representing the braille alphabet.  I love words and text on quilts and Thomas will be featuring a block a day on his blog.  The blocks are 2 squares by 3 squares.  How could I resist?  I can manage to sew six squares a day together!

I spent a bit of time deciding how large to make my blocks.  Thomas’ original quilt included blocks cut at 4 1/2″ for a quilt top center finishing at 48″ x 60″.  Since I decided to make this quilt a SafeHouse quilt as well, I upsized the blocks to be cut at 5″.  This will give me a 54″ x 67 1/2″ center to which I’ll add borders to bring it to 60″ x 80″.

Wanting to continue with the “use it up” theme, if not scraps exactly, I dug through my collection of charm packs to see what might work.  I discovered this amazing rainbow charm pack of Michael Miller Cotton Couture solids that I believe I got at Quilt Market in Kansas City last year (maybe at the MQG meet up?).  Anyway, I’m using a white solid for the background and will probably use another solid for the borders – a white bordered quilt for a child should be a Mom’s decision!

Off to make the “B” block!