Tonight is the September meeting for the Austin Modern Quilt Guild, so I stayed up until 1am last night watching the new season of Hell on Wheels and binding this sucker so I could take it to show and tell. Overall it turned out okay, though I wish I had done the quilting differently. I ultimately thought the design was busy enough, so I just did simple stitch-in-the-ditch quilting around the blocks. I also almost had an anxiety attack when I put in the washing machine, thanks to the red fabric (Thank you Shout Color Catchers!). The red actually didn’t bleed at all, the color catchers were still pretty white after the initial wash.

There are a TON of things I’d do differently the next go round with this pattern. I wouldn’t have thought so hard about color placment on the intial strip sets, and would have varied them more. I also think it might be fun to toss in a print or two throughout. This quilt ended up being a smidge smaller than twin sized, but just large enough to snuggle into! It is by far the most modern quilt I’ve finished, and overall I’m pretty happy. I am hoping to post a little strip-piecing tutorial in the next week or so, stay tuned!

I leave you with a ridiculously cute picture of my Annabelle snuggling into one of my quilts.

So I have been obsessed with the idea of making quilts entirely out of solids since the quilting bug bit me two years ago. The main obstacle in my way has been the gorgeous print fabric that screams, BUY ME! USE ME! I’m helpless when it comes to gorgeous print fabric. Nonetheless, last month I decided to tackle a modern quilt with solids. After some pinteresting around, I settled on Preppy Knee Socks by Elizabeth Hartman. I’m a sucker for her quilts, and this one is no exception. I recently sent my Planetarium quilt off for quilting, and I have Rapid City in the works. It seemed only natural to keep following this trend. Plus, knee socks are near and dear to my heart. Check out this picture of me 8 years ago with my company dodgeball team.

After I chose the pattern, it was time for color choices! I’m lucky that I know how to use Adobe Illustrator, so I started by whipping up the quilt template and then started playing around with color schemes. The process was quick and dirty, but here are a few I ended up enjoying.

I started this quilt at a recent Austin Modern Quilt Guild Retreat and picked the winning color scheme based on the fabrics a local quilt shop had in stock. Here is my progress so far, sorry for the terrible photo, I’m working on it!

I’m planning on making the quilt twin-size, only a handful of blocks to go! Elizabeth Hartman’s instructions were based on making the quilt from fabric scraps, but I chose to strip-piece it because A) I’m lazy and B) It is WAY faster. Thinking about doing a tutorial in one of my next posts, we’ll see how ambitious I feel. That is all for now! I leave you with a ridiculously cute picture of a former Austin Pets Alive! foster kitten sleeping on my window.