Paisleigh Handkerchief Quilt

At the end of the year, our LQS had a huge sale of retired fabrics. I really tried hard to control myself and even delayed visiting the sale in hopes the fabrics I'd be interested in were already gone. But...you know how it goes. When it comes to fabrics, I can always find something that's irresistible.

When I got home with my purchases, I was so excited about them I had to get right to work. Of course, nothing goes as smoothly as you hope, right?

The fabric is called Paisleigh by Maude Ashbury. There was a panel and a series of corresponding pieces. I only got the panel and figured I'd cut out the blocks, add some sashing and be done. No such luck. They weren't perfect squares (off by 1/2") so after much a-do I finally trimmed them down to make them squares and used the beautiful periwinkle for on-point diamonds.

I got the large blocks pieced together, but it was too small and narrow and I was out of periwinkle. Luckily my Mom had bought the rest of the bolt, so I was able to use some of hers to create borders. I decided to go more modern with the a-symmetrical layout and cut smaller blocks out of the remaining pieces from the panel. I've done this type of layout before in my ZigZag Quilt and I like it. Kinda fun and different.

Now that the top was done, I started work on the back. The pink chevron was another sale fabric I picked up at the same sale, but it wasn't quite big enough. Sooo...

I got creative and pieced together the last of the scraps from the panel and added periwinkle scraps to each end to make it long enough. I was kind of proud of myself for coming up with this as a solution. Using every scrap and saving money at the same time; felt like a win-win!

The last piece to this puzzle was the batting, and I had just finished my roll. Once again, I was piecing scraps together to make a full sheet of batting to use. This quilt is truly a patchwork project from start to finish. I felt so frugal and efficient. It was a fun little challenge. The finished size is 55x67, so a nice lap quilt or wall hanging.

I wasn't thrilled with the quilting, but I'm reaching the point that I just want to be able to get my quilts finished so I'm doing what I can until I have a machine that can handle the type of quilting I really want to do. A basic meander in the periwinkle and we're good. It would have been fun to do something more like some paisleys similar to the ones in my Cowgirl Quilt (which needs better pictures, I need to get on that), or practice some feathering, but not today. Not on this one.

Overall, I'm super happy with how this one turned out.  It was a lot of fun figuring all of the scraps out and the colors and prints are just so much fun to look at. Love it.

I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday on My Quilt Infatuation and Finish Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts. Come on by and check out all the great projects fellow quilters are working on.