"Anything Goes"

 Yesterday was sunny and a little warmer than it has been, so the snow melted and I was able to take a few quilt photos.    It was too sunny (after so many days of gloom!), so the results are a little washed out!  I have a huge stack of quilts needing good pictures outdoors, so today I'll try and take a few more.  I use my neighbor's deck railing and, sometimes the rocking chairs on our porch.  

First up is Honeycomb, a crib-sized quilt I finished last summer.  The designer, Karen Griska, was to speak at our state quilt guild meeting which was cancelled due to COVID-19.  I made it entirely of strings and quilted it closely with my Elna.  I love the way it turned out.  And I hope that, someday, I get to show it to Karen.

The back is plain unbleached muslin which my son always loved as a kid because it was so soft.

My next attempt at photography was Anything Goes, a sampler made of blocks swapped with quilting friends around the world.  I've been swapping with these ladies for several years, and they all do wonderful work - accurate, difficult, interesting.  They come from Australia, London, Ontario, Washington state, Florida, South Carolina, Cailfornia, Ohio, and more.  

Each person in this particular swap picked a 6" block from books like Sylvia's Bridal Sampler.  Each person got to choose what color(s) her blocks should be.  Then we had 2020 to make and mail our blocks to each other.

I'm  curious to see how everyone sets their blocks.  At first, I was going to use nine patch blocks between the swap blocks, but then I decided I wanted a larger quilt.  I ended up making 12" log cabin blocks using the swapped blocks as my centers.

As you can see, I chose my blocks to be purple, and people did a lovely job!  I have a batch of signature blocks, too, that I plan to "log cabin" also to make into a table topper as a memento.  Most of the log cabin fabric came from a birthday swap with the same group.   

I like the way the quilt turned out.  I made a few extra 6" blocks to get the quilt up to a large throw size.  The back uses polka dotted fabric and purple nine patch blocks.  I just happened to find the polka dotted fabric at Joann's, where I tend to buy only basics - muslin, Kona white - and notions.  

Here's a picture of the back.