JoAnn's Garden

A couple years ago my mother gave me a bag of fabrics that had been my sister-in-law JoAnn's.  She died about 15 years ago.  I put it aside and didn't think much about it until recently.  I decided that it would be good to pull it out and make a quilt using my mom's AccuQuilt while it was still at my house.  

I ironed and sorted the fabrics and started cutting 3.5 inch squares.  

I put the squares in stacks of 16 so I would know how many twelve inch blocks I could make.  

There was enough for thirty blocks with a few left over.  I put them up on my design wall in a darkish and lightish checkerboard pattern.  

It didn't seem quite right, so I tried a different layout with the lights in the middle.  

Cheetah liked both the black and white pictures, but not the actual fabrics. (He was home for the weekend for Panda's birthday.) The second layout just didn't seem to work with the colors I had to use.  My sister said to go with the checkerboard layout.  So I pieced thirty sixteen patch blocks.  

By then my boys had started calling this the ugly quilt.  I sent the latest picture to my mom, and she suggested adding sashing and cornerstones.  Cheetah helped me try it out.  

It started looking much better.  My sister suggested using all the same fabric for the cornerstones and matching it to the binding.  I had the perfect fabric which was left over from my wedding quilt from my mom.  

I added some Kona Snow and pieced together what had become a large twin quilt instead of a lap quilt.  

All Bunny was interested in was when could she walk on it.  She loves walking up and down each column, stepping on each block.  

I went shopping through my mom's stash for a backing.  Then was able to load it on the frames.  

I quilted it with a simple stipple because the blocks themselves were so busy.  

The binding looked great with each side.  

There is some fun I Spy which can be played on this quilt.  I used almost every fabric which was in the bag regardless of what was on it.  There was only a few exceptions of fabric which Cheetah absolutely did not like.  They all contained a golden brown color or extra bright colors which didn't go with the rest of the quilt.  Did you notice the whale in the picture above?  How about the ship sailing next to Kitty in the picture below?  

There is also gardening gloves, sewing supplies, birds, vegetables, fruits, and my husband's first name.  

It was so much fun to make because the fabrics brought back so many memories.  There is the same fabric used in my very first quilt block in it from nearly 30 years ago.  One of the fabrics was used in my very first quilt.  

It may not be my style, and my boys may think it is ugly, but I love this quilt!  

At least my girls like it, my husband never criticized it, and it looks pretty on the guest bed.  

It's a keeper.    

XX,

Jasmine