Breezy Blooms {Quilt Top Construction}

While my Coast to Coast Bee quilt from last year still isn't finished (oops!) I spent some time this weekend finishing up the quilt top for this year's C2C bee quilt.

Here are all of the rows together:

Unlike a lot of quilts, I knew how I wanted to finish this quilt when I decided on what I wanted to request from my bee mates. The rows would be sashed together with black solid (which is why I requested non-black backgrounds in the blocks from my bee mates) and then the large floral print would be used for the final border.

Drawing from my original post:

I decided on 1.5" strips for my sashing strips.

Not having to worry about a lot of matching between blocks and rows meant that this went from rows and strips to a sashed quilt center in no time at all!

I cut my floral fabric strips from the length of the fabric rather than the width of the fabric so that I could do slightly less piecing for the borders. This print is just so much fun! The quilt is now approximately 65" x 75", a big chunky throw.

Now the quilt top is done and now I have to start figuring how backing and how to quilt this one! Black thread? Pink thread? White thread? Decisions, decisions!

Don't forget to keep up with the Island Batik Great Outdoors blog hop! I'll be posting selected links to my fellow ambassadors' blog posts (especially those with giveaways!) each week. Make sure to check out a fun quilt and giveaway from Patterns by Jen and one from Powered by Quilting, too!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Coast to Coast Bee 2.0 {Stephanie's Quilt}

This post marks the end of another year of the Coast to Coast Traveling Bee (C2C Bee, for short!)

The last quilt I worked on was for Stephanie of Quilt 'n Party! Stephanie and I had been in the same hive in the Stash Bee at least once and she was also an Island Batik Ambassador last year.

Her quilt is a nature and outdoor themed quilt. In consulting with her, we decided to balance out the already added blocks featuring flowers, butterflies, and trees with some classic quilt blocks.

Here's her quilt with all of the additions from our other friends:

I pulled fabrics in the colors that are already featured in this quilt to make bear paw blocks and pinwheel blocks in various sizes.

My row of bear paw blocks was added to the bottom and was 9.5" tall and my row of pinwheel blocks was added to the top and was 6.5" tall.

Her quilt is now on its way back to Colorado for Stephanie to finish as she desires!

I also received my quilt, or rather, rows of quilt blocks, back from its trip across the country! Here's what the collection of rows currently look like:

From top to bottom the rows are from, respectively, Chelsea, Audrey, Karen, Karen, Stephanie and my original row at the bottom. I am still planning to stick to my original plan which was to sash these individual rows together with solid black fabric and then use the large scale floral print as the borders.

I may or may not add a 4" block row or two, but it might actually be totally fine with just the rows that my bee mates have sent to me. I was hoping for a throw size with this one, and I think that has been accomplished!

Sharing at Main Crush Monday and Linky Tuesday!

Coast to Coast Bee Round 2 {Starting My Quilt}

Because we had SO much fun last year, most of our Coast to Coast (C2C) Bee have returned for another year! Just a reminder of my quilt top from 2017, which I still need to finish!

My quilty friends this year are:
Audrey (Hot Pink Quilts)
Chelsea (Patch the Giraffe)
Stephanie (Quilt 'N Party)
Karen (who is mysterious!)

Last year I loved starting with a fabric line and letting my cohorts add in other fabrics as they choose. I picked through my sets of coordinating fabric and found a set of two charm packs and some yardage of an older line from Benartex, Breezy Blooms. I believe my mom bought this for me when she was on a shop hop. Here's a sampling of the fabrics:

I also have a few bright solid fat quarters in pink, orange, yellow, and green, and a VERY large chunk of the black floral in the top row of the picture. I saved part of it for myself to potentially use as borders for the quilt.

This year instead of a medallion, I am requesting a row of blocks 48" long from my friends for a row quilt. They can make their rows any height -- 48" long works well with a variety of block sizes! I drew a picture of my "vision" quilt in my notebook that travels with the quilt.

I requested either white or bright solids (I sent some with my fabrics) be used as the background in each row. My plan is to sash the rows together with black solid and then to use the rest of my large floral print as a border. It's VERY modern traditional, and perfectly me!

For my starter row, I chose to make a row of four 12" finished blocks. I used the Folded Corners block pattern. I used a pink solid background for my blocks and made each block in a different color.

My quilt has been mailed off to Stephanie, and I have Audrey's quilt starter to work on this month! Here's what it looks like thus far:

Her theme is "flight" so my initial thoughts are pinwheels and flying geese!

Have a wonderful Monday! I'm going to stay in my Scottie Dog pajamas for as long as I possibly can today.

Sharing at Linky Tuesday!