half square triangles – Wildflower Child Creates

This is the third and final quilt I completed in January 2017. That means I made as many quilts in January 2017 as I did in the entire year 2016. Maybe I can keep my mojo going for a bit (although you better not expect three quilts a month!)

When I first began quilting in 2014, I stitched two Jelly Roll Race quilt tops in two days. I realized I’d caught quilting fever but didn’t want to only make Jelly Roll Race Quilts. (One of those is still a quilt top but the other can be found here.) I looked at my fabric stash, all collected for the express purpose of making little girls clothes and landed on a one yard bundle of Pam Kitty Morning fabrics by Lakehouse Goods. It was about ten different fabrics, mostly pinks, a few yellows. I grabbed the fabrics and drove to my local quilt shop to speak to the owner.

After telling her how much I loved quilting but that I needed to branch out, she handed me a quilting magazine with a pattern called Christmas Cards. (I honestly cannot remember if it was a Quilting Quickly or a Quilty magazine.) I adapted the pattern to use 10″ squares of fabric and using white background fabric used the four at a time method for making half square triangles. I think each half square triangle ended up finishing at 6.5″ (and I’m too lazy to actually go measure right now.)

I sewed in a frenzy for days – this was no Jelly Roll Race for sure! Still, I had the blocks made and pieced in a week. I then folded the quilt up and put it away. I had no backing fabric and at the time I assumed I needed yardage of the same fabric from the same line I’d been using.

I ended up using a few fabrics not used in the front along with some more fabric I ordered to piece a back for this quilt – two years later! Last spring, I sandwiched the quilt, rolled it up and still, it sat and sat and sat.

During our MLK holiday this year, I pulled it out and told my family it was time to finish it. It took me a week to quilt it but I finally finished! Now that I’m done I wonder why I put off finishing it so long. It’s not my typical bright colors but I love all the pretty pinks and florals!

It’s also larger than most of the throw sized quilts I seem to make these days!

Here’s a close up of the fabrics.

And even closer…

I saved the text print for binding. This was almost made into an apron many times. My procrastination saved it for this quilt! (It would make a great apron though!)

Here’s the pieced backing!

And that’s it! All done. Quilt #3 for 2017! Yay!

I know it’s a second post for the day but I was excited about finishing my first block in the Modern HST Quilt Along. I think it turned out lovely and I’m excited to see how it all turns out. This is not a color combination I usually do and I like it. I’m also thinking about cutting back some of the fabrics I pulled and sticking with yellow, orange and dark blues only…

The name of the block is Candy and you can find the tutorial for putting it together here. (It’s a Shoo Fly block but the arrangement of colored half square triangles makes it look like a piece of candy.) I think it looks like the taffy you get in the candy stores in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

This block was pretty quick to cut and sew up. I love sewing up quick blocks. Now I’m very anxious to see the rest of the blocks and finish up this quilt!