Linus Quilt

Here's a Scrappy Trip Around the World, for a girl Linus Quilt, yet unquilted.  The SAME fabrics are used in each of the 48, 12-inch blocks.  This clever quilt originally came from Quiltville.com

- thank you bunches, Bonnie!  The finished top always looks so cool, no matter what fabrics are used.  Even if one uses a variety of fabrics in each block, I like to use one constant in all the blocks - pink in this case - to provide continuity.  

The backing will be 6 x 8, 10-inch squares, not yet put together.  Here is a closeup of the butterflies in the border.  I named this one "Blue Skies and Butter Flys".  8-)) It is a little large for a small child, but good for the older kids who sometimes get lost in the attention to little ones.  This quilt finishes at 59" x 83".  My backing squares finish at 60 x 80. mmm, do you see my problem?  This is called "Poor Planning"!

Green Bargello is DONE (or is it called Scrappy Trip Around the World?)!

  Finally, I have this project finished - someone how I thought it would go fast but it seemed to take forever!  Must be LIFE interfering, again.  Now that I am retired, I find I was MORE productive when working.)  Anyway, "Scrappy Bargellos" are "going around"  ala Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com and I've wanted to make another one.  Just one FQ was purchased.

I could have arranged dark blue in the CENTERS of those blocks, but I"m not sure other features would remain constant.  This will be a Linus quilt and is waaaay too large for an toddler.  4 x 6 blocks = almost 60 x 80!  Yikes, a little kid would get lost under it!  It would be good for an older girl perhaps, who likes little "Cutsies."  The blocks are 12 inches finished.

I LOVE this inner border of rabbits and orange carrots.  The quilt NEEDED a little bit of orange - this was perfect, and I just had enough.

That dark blue (above) in the border has little red/orange things in it, and it was on sale, so I swooped up 6 yards years ago, thinking it would be a good backing with those little red/orange "flowers".  Later I realized the red/orange "flowers" were lady bugs and the idea of ladybugs as a backing did not seem the best choice.

Determined to use what I already have, I cut 88 backing squares at 8.5 in.   My plan for quilting was this wide sweeping "dwirling" but I had unfortunately forgotten that this sweeping design is great for a long-arm, but I have a Domestic Sewing Machine and with almost every stop and start came a little "glitch" - crooked stitch, driving me crazy - it's difficult to control those glitchy stitches!  Lesson learned.  Previous "dwirling" on other quilts was successful when keeping the movements small, and hand-sized.  Where was my brain?

Looking at the back, at first it looked pretty awful and jumbly, but I resorted to "have faith" approach and in the end is OK.  Another handy thing I had forgotten is, when you do these kinds of squares keep all of them either with the grain or across the grain - don't mix them.  You can tell because they stretch more cross-grain.  They handle better if consistant.   I have a few pleats which I believe were caused by  carelessness, where I mixed them up. 

If you have not tried this Scrappy Bargello, you are missing out on fun - your brain will just smile when you make the first one!