scrappy inaugural weekend quilt

I was a little under the weather this weekend, and Frances was gone for quite a lot of it helping with a play, so I spent a quiet inaugural weekend at home. What better way to pass the time than making a quilt? A trip to the fabric store seemed too taxing, so I had to use what I had on hand. I make it sound like that would be hard around here. Owing to my fabric-buying habit, this is not actually the case. I did happen to have a fresh bag of quilt batting so that was good luck.

As it turns out, I didn't even end up using any impulse-bought fabric. It came from my Nana's stash and the scraps from many previous projects. It's fun to see pieces of so many old projects--Frances's baby quilt, a t-shirt quilt I made for a friend last summer, Frances's duvet... I decided to try a really random assortment and I think it turned out ok, but I would also like to see this pattern made up with more coordination.

I used this tutorial by Amy at Diary of a Quilter, sort of. I decided to mix up all of the stripes for a scrappier look. It went quite well, right up until I cut the backing fabric a bit too small. I had to trim the front a little, resulting in not-quite-squareness. It is also the biggest thing I've machine quilted so far, and I had a little trouble keeping the backing flat. More pins are part of the solution, I think. Washing and drying covers a multitude of sins too.

For the back I used a big piece of periwinkle cotton seen previously on my vintage yoga tunic and Frances's Flying Geese duvet cover. I love that stuff. I still have another yard or so. The pieced stripe has a bit of each of the fabrics used in the top. I quilted it with randomly spaced vertical lines criss-crossed with random diagonals. I definitely need more practice before I tackle the Postcards from Hawaii quilt.

This one is headed out as a very non-traditional baby quilt. Hopefully the new baby will enjoy looking at the wild and random color combinations!