Summer Breeze Flimsy

Making this quilt has been so satisfying. I hardly even thought about what I was doing most of the time; my desire was to make something simple and fast and enjoyable.

Mission accomplished.

If you click back to this post, you can read about my fascination with our wide open blue skies and the trees surrounding our yard. I love those views of blue and green together; the intention was to create a quilt that evoked the summer "look" from our porches or out our windows.

Over a year ago, I pulled these fabrics out and considered very seriously making the quilt you see in the picture - Plan C, by Miss Rosie Quilts/Carrie Nelson. Never happened, but I did keep the fabrics nearby. The fabrics were ready, but my ideas still needed to marinate.

When I actually made the move to work on this, I really never did have a firm idea of what I would end up with. I knew, though, that there would be nothing wrong with making the layer cake into hourglass blocks. So that was my start. I did the entire stack and trimmed them to 9.25 inches. That is where I was when this picture was taken.

Then I unfolded the half-yard cuts. At that point I had a very big surprise. I'd been assuming all along that these 5 half-yard cuts were all from the Summer Breeze line of fabrics from Moda. Well, I was wrong. They are from two different lines by April Cornell (also from Moda) called Secret Garden and Amanda.

Never, I mean NEVER, did I suspect that I had anything other than Summer Breeze! How could these look so perfect together and NOT be from the same line? This is one of those happy accidents that occur from time to time.

The next step was to cut these April Cornell fabrics into 9.25-inch setting squares. Fortunately, the half-yard cuts were generous and I could get 8 from each piece for a total of 40 squares.

I set them alternately with the hourglass blocks, and have 8 blocks across with 9 blocks down.

I did not allow myself to fuss about placement - too much. I sewed the first two columns together randomly, but did lay the rest out on the bed so that I wouldn't end up with unpleasant combinations at the end. This probably saved me a lot of time as well, because I stacked them up in Eleanor Burns' fashion, and whizzed right through the construction phase.

Then borders. Because this center part has so much yellow, I knew I wanted a solid green inner border. I searched the stash and found a few candidates; the one I chose is rather strong, but I wanted the green to have a 'presence' so I went with it.

The outer border came from that large piece of clearance fabric I bought a couple of weeks ago. The original plan was that it would be the backing for this quilt. Since I used it for the larger border, I will likely return to that clearance table to get a bit more to make up the difference and do a pieced backing.

The basics on this quilt are simple, and I might try making another one with some random layer cakes I have had here for far too long. To recap:

• 1 layer cake, made entirely into hourglass blocks, trimmed to 9.25 inches.
• 2.5 yards setting fabric;  one piece or several different pieces of fabric - cut to 9.25-inch squares
• Stitch alternately an 8 block by 9 block quilt top. My borders are 2.5 inches for the inner; 5.5 inches for the outer.
• Final quilt measurement: roughly 93" x 84".

Happy Quilting, Friends!