Coast to Coast Bee 3.0 {My Block}

A new year means the start of new quilt bees, including the Coast to Coast Traveling Bee! While we decided to put off the start of this year's edition of the C2C Bee until February, I have been looking forward to this bee restarting since we concluded last year!

As a reminder, here are my two quilt tops (neither are finished quilts yet, oops.) from 2017 and 2018:

This year, I took my starting block inspiration from my new hometown -- Gettysburg, PA! I found this quilt block that's actually called "Gettysburg" and scaled it to an 18" finished block.

For my fabrics, I pulled Kona Navy for my background and red, white, and aqua fabrics for the rest of the piecing. I decided to paper piece my square in a square units.

The best part about big blocks is how fast they are!

Instead of using this block as the start to a medallion, I'm going to ask each of my bee-mates to make their own 18" finished block inspired by a location -- with lots of state-inspired and history-inspired quilt blocks available, I hope this is a fun (and not overly difficult) request!

Here's a mock up of my design idea with my block repeated four times (but each person will choose their own block(s)!

My plan is that each block will have the Kona Navy background and I will also use the same fabric for the sashing. This will end up being more in the range of 40-45" square rather than a bigger throw quilt. This quilt is likely going to end up in our red bedroom (aka the baseball room) as a quilt for whichever chair ends up in that room as the "reading chair".

I will be working on Stephanie's quilt first this time around. Sharing at Linky Tuesday!

The Border Quilt QAL {Sawtooth Stars}

My quilt is growing at a rapid pace! Check out the information about The Border Quilt QAL here!

This "round" of blocks is sawtooth stars! Here's my quilt with all of the stars added:

Since I'm working from scraps and not from yardage, I thought I would share a little more in detail about the process I use to make scrappy yet coordinated blocks for this section of the quilt.

First and foremost, I separated my scraps into one pile of lights and light-mediums and a second pile of darks and dark-mediums for my backgrounds and stars, respectively. From these piles, I sorted the fabrics by size to make sure I had enough of a fabric to make a full block (or two or three or four!). Most of my blocks were made in pairs and all of the blocks but the red star blocks in the corners have the same fabric throughout the block. 

I also employed multiple techniques to make the flying geese based on the sizes of my scraps. For many, I had fabric wide enough to use the fast flying geese technique. For others, my scraps weren't wide enough so I used the stitch and flip technique. Even though the stitch and flip technique isn't my favorite, it allowed me to make use of a wider variety of scraps. 

Originally, my plan was to quit after my "round" of stars, but I have plenty (PLENTY!) of scraps for the next round of the quilt -- friendship stars! I still need to add my next round of solid fabric as the spacer border, but I will do that when I start my friendship stars next week. I think I only have enough Kona Champagne for one more spacer border!

Happy Wednesday!

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday Let's Bee Social, And Oh Scrap!

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!

The Border Quilt QAL {Join me!}

I'm excited to share that I am joining in on The Border Quilt QAL hosted by Patterns by Jen!

Jen is a fellow Island Batik Ambassador and designs beautiful patterns, including this one! She was lovely enough to sponsor a giveaway as part of our Blocked Rainbow QAL this spring and I jumped at the chance to play along with her Border Quilt QAL, which starts in September!

Click this link to see a full schedule for this QAL!

The fun part about this quilt pattern is that it is written so that you can make your quilt as small or as large as you'd like!

For me, I'm going to be making a scrappy version of the quilt. I pulled an older fat quarter (the paisley print) from my stash and pulled other fabric from my scrap bins to coordinate. My background fabric is Kona Champagne.

My plan is to make the quilt as big as my scraps allow, which I am estimating will carry me through the sawtooth stars. I'm also planning to do the pieced center.

Looking at my current fabric pull, I might need to add in a few more dark pieces, but I'm sure if I dig deeper in my stash I'll find options.

Additionally, Jen will be having interviews with some of us bloggers that are participating in the QAL throughout the month of August. Keep your eyes peeled for those!

Come join me!