I'm seeing RED!

It all started a few months ago when the collaborative I have with my friends Alice and Cheryl, the Mountain Jam Circle, decided on a pattern and color scheme for the quilt we have been donating to the local Folk Heritage Committee to be raffled off during the summer to support "Shindig on the Green."

We decided to use our "stashes" to create blocks of red and white (or neutral or beige).  When I went through my fabrics, I was amazed at how many red fabrics I had.  However I didn't have very many neutrals.

For each block we needed a central 5 inch square of a red, four smaller squares of the same red, and four rectangles of a neutral.  I went to town cutting my fabric squares and didn't really keep track of how many I was cutting.  Turns out I had plenty for the 15 squares I was assigned to make, plus I made a few extra... and I still had a generous pile of 5 inch squares left over!

So last month we got together and stitched together the quilt top.  Here we are holding up the top which is single bed sized:

Alice had cut all the beige background fabric that was also used for the border.  Cheryl took the quilt top home and she will do the machine heirloom quilting which will transform this top into something spectacular!  No doubt you will see the completed quilt on this blog fairly soon.

Since we all had made some extra blocks, we ended up with 12 unused blocks which Alice and I stitched into a smaller quilt top.

You'll notice that even though we used the same basic block, the Shindig quilt is set on point with alternating blocks of beige, while the smaller quilt is set with the blocks lined up in rows.  

I took the little quilt home and quilted it and backed it with fabric we had had left over from a prior Shindig quilt and added a binding from that stash box of red fabrics that I have.

Here it is draped over a chair in my living room:

 And a closer look, so you can see the binding.

Well, you might remember that I had quite a few of those red 5 inch squares already cut, so I decided to make yet another red and white quilt.  I used a very simple pattern called "disappearing nine patch" and set the squares on point to get this quilt top:

I think it's about 50 inches square, which is a good size for practicing my free motion quilting.  When it gets quilted, it will probably deserve a nicer picture on this blog.  Right now I don't have an appropriate piece of backing fabric, so it may be a while...

I hope our Shindig quilt makes a lot of money for the Folk Heritage Committee and perhaps these two smaller quilts will warm someone's lap or make a nice place for a baby to play!