Goldilocks and the 3 Quilts

I finished these three quilts today.  By “finished” I mean “attached the labels.”  Two of them were waiting for the third to catch up.  How about a little story?

This summer I went on a Shop Hop and bought three charm packs with the intention of making some pinwheel quilts.  The method is super simple . . . place two charms right sides together and stitch on all four edges.  Cut each pair from corner to corner twice – like an X.  Press the HSTs that result and sew them back together.

Quilt #1:

I paired all the charms from one package, which resulted in 21 blocks.  That’s not enough for a lap quilt, so I dug around in my stash and found this green that worked great with the collections (Moda’s Merriment).  A quarter yard of red and it’s ready to quilt.

For some reason, I decided to do the border with parallel lines . . . 3/8 of an inch apart.  Do you have any idea how long it takes to stitch all those lines?!?!!  That was just toooo much!

Quilt #2:

In the meantime, I’ve read an article that says you need two charm packs for a lap size quilt.  So I picked out a Bella Solid or two (or three, they’re inexpensive!) to coordinate with this collection (Moda’s Snowbird).  Not bad, but it needs a border, so back to buy some yardage from the collection.  So much for “just a charm pack!”

Hoping to save on quilting time, I decided on a meandering ribbon pattern.  It’s been awhile since I’ve done any free motion quilting and I guess I should have done a little practice first.  My ribbons are too far apart and pretty jerky and lumpy.  This time it was toooo little.

Quilt #3:

At this point I’m thinking I’d like to try something different.  What if I added strips to make bigger blocks?  And how about some sashing, too.  That works pretty well and since I was buying fabric anyway, I got some yardage to match this collection, too.  This is my favorite anyway – Snowman Frolic.  Those snowmen are just too cute!

I found a fairly easy quilting pattern involving wavy lines and circles.  It went much better, probably because I was already warmed up from the second quilt.  On the borders I did a wide diagonal grid which worked up nice and quick.  This one was juuuuust right!

Now I know how Goldilocks felt!

These three quilts are destined to go to my quilt guild’s charity project.  I enjoyed making the pinwheels, but I think I’ve done enough for now.  Time to get back to something more complex.  Hmmm.  Maybe some paper piecing.