My Four Patch Quiltalong

A few weeks ago I decided to join in the fun of doing the Four Patch Quiltalong after seeing it in my APQ magazine.  They featured 4 great four patch quilts and I decided to make Lissa Alexander's version, but I changed it up a little.  I've been calling this "Muted Tuxedo".

The four patches are made from 1 1/2/" strips and they finish at 2".  Tiny but so effective.

I had been collecting yellow and gray fabric and thought this would be a good pattern to use with them.  The original pattern had all the four patches going vertically.  Since I always like to change things up a little, I rotated every other row and set them going horizontally.  It got really confusing as there were lots of different blocks.  In fact, there is a boo-boo in one of the rows (picture below), but it stayed in.  Can you find it?

As it started to grow, it began to look like little bow ties on a ruffled tuxedo shirt.  But since some of them fade in and out depending on the value of the gray squares, they looked muted to me and so it became "Muted Tuxedo".

Since I was only using 2 colors, I had to be very particular where the values were, especially with the yellow fabrics.  If too many yellows touched each other, I got this big yellow looking piece.  Horrors!! We can't have that!  So I built this quilt one four patch at a time.  I'm sure it took a lot longer, but in the end I was much happier.

Making some of the four patches using 4 shades of gray helped with the blending.  It was finally ready to sew into rows.

I did decide to add the scrappy setting triangles but will not be adding the outside border.  It's a nice sized lap quilt.

And lest you think I forgot..............

her's the kitty.  I didn't have any yellow kitty fabric, so this was the closest.  He looks kind of scared just peeking out at me.  If you hadn't noticed him, he's in the bottom left hand corner.

And I couldn't end without a pictures from our recent trip to NC to celebrate my DH's birthday.

How I love these little people and the big guy too :).

Happy stitching,

Karen