Next cab off the rank

Here's the most recent quilt top, it's the Batch of Brownies pattern from Elizabeth Hartman's The Practical Guide to Patchwork, which I got for Christmas.  Another present I got for Christmas was a gift certificate from my friend Sarah, for a fabric shop in Edmonton.  Although it wasn't a quilting shop per se, they did have a fairly extensive selection of basic prints and solids and I knew I had all this linen at home and so the two presents combined very well! It's an awful picture because it's an overcast and dreary day today.



The thing about choosing fabrics from a non-quilting shop is that you're rather constrained in your choices, and no picking fabrics from one line or anything like that! I didn't care for the fabrics used in the book (I just really really don't get that whole camouflage and deer print thing, it was too like home decor of a friend's house when I was a kid!) but I loved the linen she used for sashing so decided to go with more primary colours. As soon as I started sewing it I suspected it was going to be a heck of a lot brighter than I'd intended! And so it was. I really can't make up my mind about it it - on one hand I like it a lot, but on the other hand it's the kind of quilt I admire on other people's blogs but wouldn't really want myself. The orange is a smidge too orange, and the pink is verging on garish Barbie pink. My favourite print of the lot is the yellow, with overlapping circles. But still, overall it's not bad. Hazel likes it anyways! I added sashing top and bottom, which isn't in the pattern, but it's a still little too short for her bed. I did wonder about trying to slot in another row, but since all I have left of the fabrics is small scraps it would take a lot of cutting and fiddly stuff. Doable but probably not worth it! It just won't tuck in at the end of the bed is all.

It's definitely the most technically proficient quilt I've done so far, and I'm really proud of that. It was the first time I've sewed up blocks and then cut and resewed them to get different arrangements. The blocks lined up and everything stayed pretty straight, which is more than I can say for my red quilt! Oddly though, I had trouble with the red blocks, if anything was out it was always those. I don't know what it was - the weave of the fabrics, maybe they shrunk a bit with ironing?

The next step is to figure out backing and quilting. I'm a bit nervous about using linen for the backing because I can see it puckering and stretching something wicked, but perhaps if I sprayed it with starch and then used spray adhesive instead of pinning everything together? Might be worth a try anyways.

Loved the pattern though, super-easy to follow and substitute other fabrics in. I think that's one of its major strengths, aside from the nice patterns! I got a Kafe Fasset book out of the library yesterday and I think it would be nigh-on impossible to do most of those patterns in anything else but the specified fabrics. Certainly not worth the bother of figuring it out when you have books like Elizabeth's instead.