New project

I had a lot of fabric piles fighting for my attention after finishing my batik quilt.  Do I start something with my Swanky fat quarters, or with the Sweet jelly roll?  I had all but decided to start the Swanky quilt, but remembered a quilt I cut out in November to take to my retreat that I didn't end up working on.

I'm using Atkinson's Designs book Time Out Quilts and this quilt, Lilypads, is on the cover.  We had a sample hanging in our shop made out of batiks and I just loved the design of it.  I decided to make mine using some fat quarters of Sandy Henderson's Farmer's Market fabrics in the pink and orange colorways (with a few blues and purples thrown in for fun) and a big cream paisley from Moda's Roman Holiday collection.

I really like Terry Atkinson's patterns - they are usually made with fat quarters and have a variety of sizes so you can make it as large or as small as you need.  I'm making mine a twin size with 20 blocks.  Her patterns are also very well written with very clear instructions.  Although I must say, I really wasn't enjoying this quilt the first couple of days I worked on it.  I am very much a product person, and due to the diagonal layout of the quilt, you can't see the actual "blocks" until you've got them all laid out and start to sew the rows together.  But Nicole convinced me to press on, and I put the first few blocks up on my design wall and fell immediately in love.

Now I can't put this one down and I'm really enjoying the fun, fresh, spring-like fabrics.

Speaking of fun fabrics, I won a Valentine's fabric drawing on Monday from Pink Chalk Studios and look at the fun fat quarters that made their way into my mailbox - thanks Kathy!  I am thinking of adding more pinks and reds and making the cute Xs and Os quilt I saw on a blog (but first I have to find it again!)