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To Err is Human

To make a quilt from your error . . is divine!  🙂

One of the quilts I was making for the new book uses two shades of Michael Miller’s Krystal fabric — a lavender and a purple.  I cut all the strips for the book quilt and then decided I wanted to change the size of the block so all those strips were now too big.  My first thought was to cut them down but there were quite a few . . maybe 24 total, and even whacking off  just 1/2″ was going to mean wasting 12″ of fabric so I stuck those aside and figured I’d use them for something else.

The next time I was playing with Electric Quilt, I came up with a quilt that would use those rejected strips.

What was on my design wall on Monday were the blocks I made from those strips.  Now I’ve completed the blocks.  What a difference lighting makes!  The colors in the top picture are more accurate.

I wanted something fairly quick and easy.  No half square triangles.  No quarter square triangles . . just squares and rectangles.  The blocks will finish at 10″ and I had enough strips cut to make 30 blocks so the quilt will have 5 blocks across and 6 blocks up and down.  That will result in a 50″ x 60″ quilt.  This will be a donation quilt and those need to be at least 60″ x 80″.  Wanting to finish this top quickly means I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on a pieced border, though lots of border ideas kept finding their way into my design.  It’s easy to add a couple of borders that equal 5″ on each side and that would result in 10″ total which would make the width of the quilt 60″.  But, the length needed an extra 20″.  That’s too much space to fill with plain borders so a pieced border had to find its way in there somewhere.  It’s never hard for me to come up with a pieced border!  Love those things!   Here’s what I came up with.  The colors in the EQ drawing obviously are not the exact colors used in the top.

Blocks were added to the top and bottom only.  But, if I take off the dark purple side piece on the pieced border blocks on the far left and right side, I get this:

I like this last one better.  The quilt will now be 61″ x 81″ and I think it’s pretty darned cute . . if I do say so myself!  Don’t you think this will be a great quilt to donate to the Louisiana children’s home?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Judy, this is darling! I love the color play in this. I also like the border. Makes me think of piano keys. Congrats! Whoever the recipient is will be a lucky person. 🙂

  2. The pieced border top and bottom remind me of the crenalated (spl?) top of a castle. With all that purple I can see some little girl wrapped up in her castle quilt dreaming of being a princess. I like it so much better with the borders. I don’t know why but it seemed jarring without them.

  3. I love it! I wish I thought of creative designs like you. Thank you for sharing.

  6. Very cute. It’s hard not to see a castle. Bet this would be really pretty in pinks. Great way to “correct” an error!

  7. It’s lovely. My first thought was fringed rug but I get the battlements on a castle too.

  9. You did a wonderful job of fixing a mistake, girl. I like the second border also.
    How about naming it ” castle nights”?

  13. yep, yep, yep…great donation quilt. great bright colors. love that light 2nd border that goes all around. great job

  14. I thought of castle’s also. Those happy colors could be banners on a castle wall!
    Some child will be very happy with a very cheerful quilt.

  20. Oh, Judy I love your donation quilt design, especially the fine tuned border & the colors are wonderful! Someone is going to feel like a fairy tale princess!!

  21. My first thought was a fringed rug too. So fun and bright – someone will love it.

  24. That is a pretty darn cute quilt, Judy. I wasn’t too impressed with the blocks once you added the other colors but those borders just made it snap together into a gorgeous quilt.

    Congrats!

  25. Great looking quilt Judy. It’s purple, my favorite!!! It does resemble a castle, but I like the rug reference so you could call it “Magic Carpet Ride”:) 🙂 Dar in MO

  26. Love it also. I cant “whip” that stuff up when I am TRYING, but to do it from a mistake-well, you are very talented.

  27. I like that last one the best as well. You can send it here, let me give you my home address! LOL! Some child will be so happy to have that quilt. It reminds me of a castle.

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