Baby quilt for a new little MQG member

Jessie, the president of the DC Modern Quilt Guild, just had a baby.  I was lucky enough to get to put together the blocks from the MQG members to make the quilt for the new little bundle.



I was inspired by Teaginny's Tiny Log Cabin Quilt.  So I asked for monochromatic log cabin blocks in each member's favorite color, out of their favorite fabrics and measuring only four to five inches.  I also asked each person to send some pale neutral scrap for the sashing.

Once I received quite a few blocks in the mail, I arranged them on my design floor.  I like to use the back of a picnic tablecloth.  The flannel side is very sticky and the other side is slippery so it is easy to roll up or fold and then flatten it back out without my blocks getting rearranged.




Then I started improv piecing around each colorful block with whatever low volume bits I could find that worked.  Here is the first quarter,




the second quarter (after Henry trampled on it),




the third quarter,




and the fourth.




Once the top was all assembled I basted it,


and then did some quilting with white 20wt thread.


Then I added some black hand quilting around each block...














(that cerise block is mine!)


...and I hand stamped the back of the quilt with the first name of the person that made that block.




Linda attached the binding and hand stitched most of it and Anne finished the rest.  I'm so grateful that some people like to add binding because it is my least favorite step of the process.




I stamped DCMQG and wrote the year on it.

 


These are 11 of the 24(!) people that submitted blocks for this quilt.

Patchwork Death Star Pattern

I was hoping to post this a couple of days ago, but it turns out that I'm not very tech savvy.  Thank goodness I finally pulled it together.  Here is the link for the pdf file for the free pattern and some instructions.

I have a couple of pictures that I took along the way that I'll post here.  If you do make a patchwork Death Star please please please post a link for me to see.  If you are on IG, please tag it #patchworkdeathstar.  Thanks!  I can't wait to see different versions.  I originally dreamed of this all in tiny Libery florals.  Wouldn't that be cool?

Well anyway, here is a shot of a few of my pieces after glue basting.



And here is a picture of the top half pieced and sitting on top of my first drawing of it. 


The final pattern will make an 11x12" block.  The perimeter fabric can easily be made larger by extending the paper pattern.  The Death Star itself could be made bigger by bringing the pdf printouts to a copy store and enlarging them.

May the force be with you.