Floral Quilt Blocks

Remember a few posts ago - School Boy and I made a trip to Marden's and he picked out all this floral type fabric for a quilt. That LARGE floral is so not what I would have picked but that is what his little heart just loved. SB picked out all these fabrics - once he had his focus fabric in hand I told him to go ahead and pick out a few greens, blues, purples and a red to go with. After a bit of fussy cutting - I think the smaller roses are 3.5" and the bigger ones are either 6" or 6.5"... and cutting the other fabrics into 2" strips (my favorite size you know!), this is what we have so far - a bunch of 9.5" blocks. I bought 1.5 yards of that large floral to give me enough motifs to fussy cut. The other fabric was 1/2 yard pieces and it looks like I will have some left-overs... still have blocks left to go so I won't know for sure until those are made.

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I am glad that I worked fast on this one because I forgot one important thing when buying fabrics for this quilt ... ready... I didn't get enough fabric. True, true, true!!! I need extra yardage for a narrow inside border - probably that bright green and fabric for an outside border. I usually buy 2 yards for an outside border and have some left over... would rather have extra than not enough! And I even need MORE fabric than that to finish this quilt up because School Boy wants a matching pillowcase. Since the quilt will be big enough for a double bed, might as well make that 2 pillowcases! We are going back to Marden's very soon so lucky us - they probably will still have that fabric on hand. Phew.

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You all know that I just love scrappy quilts. And I do! But my scrappy quilts also include a fair amount of yardage to make it all "work" for me. It is soooo easy to go to a store and buy 1/2 yard cuts of this and that for a scrap quilt, but really, it is very important to remember to have enough background fabric on hand, or a focus fabric or something that will work for borders/sashings, etc. I am sure we all can find a bit of a scrap to fill in here or there, but when it comes to yardage - my shelf is a bit bare so it is important for me to remember what I really NEED in order to even start sewing sometimes! I know that this quilt will look just fine without borders, but I like borders so I'm going back to that border fabric!!!

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And, right next to where I was laying out blocks, School Boy was happy to spend time designing his own quilt using an odd assortment of blocks from the shelf. This is what he has so far... and he has asked me to make up some more pinwheels - in orange and turquoise. He probably is going to want a few paper pieced picture blocks too and I don't know what else. A quilt that won't win any beauty contests for sure, but gosh - he sure is proud of it!!! Looks like it might be a bit of a challenge to sew all together, but I will give it my best shot.

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All in all, it was a good way to pass part of a rainy weekend. The big hurricane that was tracking straight toward us veered off in another direction and we only got rain with a bit of wind. Yeah!