Rabbit Trail

 I knew I was going to have grandkids a lot this week, so I gave myself permission to take a week off of working on the rally quilt, even though the deadline for it is rapidly approaching.

I had a baby quilt to make, and it's basted and ready to quilt, though I haven't started quilting it yet. I was asked to make a doll quilt that matched Miss A's new baby doll, and while I was at it, I decided to make a couple more doll quilts.

This was the doll I needed to match. I was told either a yellow, orange, white color scheme or rubber ducks would work.

I went shopping with my sister and found a yellow/orange fat quarter pack, plus I picked up a couple bright rainbow type fat quarter packs as well for the other doll quilts, or so I thought. 

The fat quarter pack I bought only had five fat quarters, but I needed ten different fabrics to make the crazy quilt block I wanted to make. No problem, I just looked through my stash and grabbed five more fat quarters. 

I have more than one crazy quilt die. I have the 6" Go Die, the 10" Studio die, and a Blue Wren 6" die that has fewer pieces. I decided to use the 6" Go die. Technically, you can cut six layers of fabric with a Go die, but sInce I needed to cut ten different fabrics, I opted to cut five layers at a time. With four passes of the die, I had cut enough for 20 blocks. Inspiration struck while I was cutting those fabrics, so I cut all the scraps into 2" squares, and now I've got another quilt on my to do list. 

The pieces of the crazy quilt blocks went together like a dream, and I really had fun making them. I had so much fun, in fact, that I grabbed a bunch of fat quarters and I'll be cutting a larger quilt using the Studio die very soon. 

I just finished that doll quilt, and here it is.

I sent a sneak peek to DD#1, and she thought it looked like a pile of autumn leaves. I can see that. 

For the backing I used some rubber duck flannel I had in stash. 

Now those other doll quilts I was making....Here's where I started down a rabbit trail. 

My original plan was to make one doll quilt from the square in a square blocks. I made those using sew and flip corners just so I could make the smaller pinwheels with the bonus triangles. I figured I make the second doll quilt from the smaller pinwheels. The larger pinwheels were just what I could make from the fabric scraps after cutting the square in a square blocks. The thing is, I like the blocks so well (I love playing with bright colors), that now I'd like to make larger quilts from those blocks. Right now I have 60 square in a square blocks, sixty small pinwheels, and about 20 large pinwheels. I can get six square and a square and six smaller pinwheels from one pair of fat quarters. I can always get one larger pinwheel from the scraps, but sometimes I can get two. I can make a 24" x 30" doll quilt from the larger pinwheels now. Right now my plan is to match up some more fat quarters, then I'll make more blocks, and see if I can get some decent sized throws from the smaller pinwheels and the square in a square blocks. I'm thinking I may use a white alternating block with the smaller pinwheels but we'll see. These blocks seem to have their own ideas about things. 

I've got two granddaughters for the next three days, Miss A above, and Miss E, who was all packed and ready to come yesterday!

My sciatica isn't all the way gone, but it's doing much better, so Friday we're planning on taking the girls to the pumpkin patch. It will be a lot of walking, and no doubt I'll be sore afterwards, but I think I'll be able to do it. I've got a couple crafts and cookie making on the agenda as well. 

No sewing for the next couple of days, but I might be able to slip in a bit of cutting. After all, I can always use those brightly colored blocks as leaders/enders while I'm working on the rally quilt, right?