One Bajillion Blue

I thought I had already taken pictures of, and posted this....but I didn't!  So Sam (click her name to check out her blog, Diary of a Mad Fabriholic), this one's for you!

I used one single block (I know, I had 100 to choose from and I only chose one, lol) from Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks

This wonderful book that I need to make more blocks from

I chose Number 77, because I thought it would be neat to make a larger block from 4 of these blocks.

I wanted to alternate lights and darks to get an optical illusion...And I needed to get rid of blue scraps.  So I chose 50 light blues, and 50 dark blues and when to town.  There are only 100 different blues here, but after all that picking, and cutting, and piecing, and pinning, and pressing, and assembling....it might as well have been one bajillion.  Hence, one bajillion blue.  

 

Right now the quilt is on display in the shop as a sample for the book.  The walls are pretty high (very tall ceiling) so from down here I know the picture isn't all that great....but you get the idea :-)  And no, your eyes aren't deceiving you....it does lack a binding. 

Freedom!!!!!! Well, kind of.

Now that the holidays are over I can go back to doing what I do best....starting too many projects at once and going forth with a "I'll finish it when I feel like it" attitude.

Right now I've got a comfort quilt that's been pushed to number 1 priority.  After having a rough few months, everything came to a head for a dear family friend when his wife an daughter got rear ended by a drunk driver going 70.

Here's my public service announcement about that... Don't drive drunk.  Seriously.  If you drive drunk, you're not only selfish and entirely moronic, but dangerous to everyone on the road.  Don't do it.

Luckily, the story has a happy ending and no one was seriously hurt, but after everything else...let's just say they need a quilt. They're outdoorsy folks so I made this for them from a pattern by Aardvark Quilts:

I was going to add a border but...after trying a few different borders...eh.  It looks better borderless. Hopefully it'll come back from the quilter soon and I can send it to them in the next month or so.  I take FOREVER to bind things.

Then...during a slow moment at the shop I got bit with an idea, another out of that Modern Quilt Blocks book and I decided to do my first truly "Modern" style quilt, by stepping out of my box and going with solids.  I'm not thrilled with solids.  I know a lot of folks love them...but I don't.  The colors are beautiful, but the lack of even one iota of texture makes them boring to me. Just, blah.  But they're getting really popular again with the Modern Quilt Movement, so I thought it was time to give that little tree a twirl.  And as you guys know, I like playing with odd color pairings so I went with ochre and yellow paired with dark and light purple.  I couldn't go 100% solid, so there are 2 complementing and subtle prints in the center of the blocks. I'm pretty satisfied with it, I have to say.