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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Playing in the Rain

While I didn't actually play in the rain, I was playing while it rained :). In case you're curious - we ended up with 17 1/2" at our house! Glad that's over! But here's what kept me busy.  Going thru a random box of fabric, I found this orphan block.
Here's the block before it was quilted, but the color is way off.  Anyway, it's a sweet orphan a friend gave me several years ago and I threw it in the box.
Seeing so many little quilts out there, I decided maybe to just play and see if I could make a little quilt.  I had a little bag of bonus hst's left over from a project using Cabbage and Rose.  I'm so glad I spent the time to sew and press them, because they were waiting for me to use and they were all ready.
I started laying them out surrounding the orphan block.  Guess how many I used?  Every single one! I had exactly the number I needed to build a border.  I'm sure that will never happen again.  I didn't have any room to trim the orphan block so I had to add small strips to get the math to come out right.  So it ended up being a 9 patch.
I had some yardage left, so I added the blue border called it finished!  It was a little too big to probably be called a "little" quilt so I thought about how I could use it.
I saw my Viking sitting there with it's "lovely" cover.  Why not use the quilt to cover my machine when not in use and I would get to enjoy the quilt all the time??
So that's what I've done!!  I decided to make the side panels larger than the top and bottom to create the right shape to cover the machine.  When the binding was on I took it outside (it quit raining) and took pictures.  The color in these pictures is finally accurate!
I had so much fun quilting this - I can see why small quilts are so addicting!  I looked at each section, started quilting and just let my hands wander.


This is a happy quilt and it's so rewarding to use up things I had stuffed away for a "someday" project.  Who knew it would only take 17 1/2" of rain to inspire me :).
Here's the finished quilt.  Pretty cool.
Here's the back :).

Well, maybe it's a little big :0!!  I wanted to cover it completely - I guess I did that!!  At least I'll enjoy seeing it often:).
I also worked on some other things - almost finished with them.
Have a great day,
Karen

15 comments:

Jan said...

Adorable! Yes, little quilts are great fun!

Darlene said...

Oh, Karen, it's adorable and sweet. That orphan block is happy, happy, happy being center stage on your Viking. :-)

Doniene said...

PERFECT!!!! Such a lovely little quilt. Glad you are safe from the rain - you can share and send it our way!!

Blessings

Vivian said...

You had a WAY too much rain for one session. Glad it finally came to a halt, and look what you did! It's sweet, colorful, inventive, and no more UFO.
Small quilts are such a great way to fill in little chunks of time in our lives. This is a winner, that's for sure.

Marie said...

How great is that?! It's as though it was meant to be, and really beautiful as well. So lovely to be able to use up little odds and sods and get something that nice - good for you.

Angie said...

Cute, cute, cute! Glad you had fun playing - the best thing to do when the weather is bad!

Kristy said...

Oh this is so pretty! I love how you made such a wonderful design around the flower Your quilting is amazing! What a wonderful quilt! Glad you didn't have any flooding! K-

Ruth said...

You did a wonderful job on your little quilt/sewing machine cover! It is adorable and a great way to use the orphan block & leftover HSTs.

Karen said...

I thought you would be building an ark and not a quilt!

Terry said...

What a great way to use up an orphan block! Your little quilt is beautiful! :0)

FlourishingPalms said...

I'm so happy for you to have this pretty finish! Yes, it's so much fun to quilt a little quilt. It almost feels EASY, doesn't it? And it's way more fun because you can really manage it. Your quilting is wonderful! I think it must have been worth 17-1/2 inches of rain to have that finish. And you beat us, rainfall-wise here. We didn't come close to that amount. Lovin' Florida though! Closing on our house Thursday! Yay!

Carla said...

What a sweet quilt and I love it as a machine cover. The weather is so strange this summer. It's so dry here that the lawns are looking bleak and it's only June...not Aug!
Send some rain our way, would you!
'

AnnieO said...

Wow, that is a stunning amount of rain. We have that much in a normal year in SoCalif, yikes!

Love your new little quilt--how nice for all those extras to come together in such a lovely way. My machine needs a cover too...hmmm.

Heather said...

Love it. Just got back from 2 weeks in my Florida home. Rained almost the whole time. Good job I had sewing to work on. :-)

Shirlee said...

Love the little quilt. You are inspiring me to run to my box of orphan blocks to see what I can find.