No Drama Llama

 Spring always brings new babies.  A good friend's granddaughter is having a baby girl later this summer.  Since sewing in the summer is not my thing I decided I'd make a quilt before the temperatures warmed up. 

With leftover fabrics from previous quilts this will be my gift for the new edition to their family.

Using Art Gallery Fabrics (AGF)  fabric and one of their patterns from their Lookbooks, Pacha, this quilt came together rather quickly.  I improvised with my own color palate.

I love AGF fabrics.  The fabrics are very soft and of great quality.  But the icing on the cake is their Lookbooks.  I could spend hours getting inspired to sew some great projects.  And their directions are user friendly.

My finished size is 38" by 54" to fit a crib mattress.

I love making a fabric tote to fill with my quilt and gifts.  A great gift, but also no waste with wrapping paper. With left over llama fabric I made a soft toy tote with pink trim.

Back to the sewing room.  I have some random projects to bust through.

You've gotta friend

 As spring springs ahead spring cleaning traditionally becomes a ritual.  As I was reorganizing and cleaning my quilting stash I came across a partially constructed quilt called Friendship Rings.  I watched the construction of this quilt on televisions PBS program Fons and Porter.  It instantly got me interested in sewing this quilt.

First, I had already constructed a bunch of string strips that were left over from my quilt, Snow on Pines.  Second, the construction of piecing the polygon blocks together was so much easier than I have done from previous patterns, such as Paperweights.  Fons and Porter constructed the blocks in half (three sided) than put together in strips instead of construction the whole ring and than putting the blocks together.  When the strips were sew together, viola, perfect polygons and just straight seam sewing.  This will be my new adapted technique when sewing any circular blocks/rings.  

Fons and Porter's Friendship Rings quilt was constructed with 30s reproduction fabrics.  Their outer border was appliquéd with vines and leaves and there was a red ric-rac trim between the blocks and the border.  My intention was to copy pretty close to what they showed, but I ended up with a little different variation.  Below is the Fons and Porter quilt version.

First, I did not use 30s reproduction fabrics.  My fabric choice was more contemporary - remember I'm busting through my fabric stash and using previous constructed string strips.  As I was constructing my blocks together I of course decided I needed it bigger - queen size.  Once I made enough rings to cover the top of my queen-size bed mattress I absolutely loved it and with my fabric choice I knew I would not use the ric-rac.  Since my color choice in the rings is green I thought appliquéing just the leaves and vines in greens in the outer border would work.  I could even use my string strips for the leaves.  Well, once I laid the pieced quilt  top on my bed, it seemed too contemporary for the addition of the appliqué.  Instead I added more rings that would extend it to hang over the side of the bed to finish the quilt top.  In place of the appliquéd border I used up the rest of my stringed strips to finish off the edges making a piano key design.

My finished size is 85" by 85".

It's a great feeling to finish a UFO.  I have so many other quilts/challenges I can't wait to tackle.  I have a couple more quilts to finish piecing together, so I better stay focused and get busy because summer is just around the corner and my sewing time come to an end as I focus on outside projects.

Sew back to the sewing machine.