Summer Sampler Series

Have you seen the summer sampler series going on at Swim, Bike, Quilt, Fresh Lemons Quilts, and Freshly Pieced? I gave in. There are some really cool blocks. And once I thought of a color combo I liked, it was all over and I just couldn't help myself. One trip to Joann's later and I had a nice stack of fabric to play with (I am a sucker for $0.99 fat quarters).


My justification for making this quilt: I plan to use it to practice free motion quilting. I keep wanting to do that, but it is harder when a recipient is already picked out and I get too scared to try it for fear of them not liking it. I just know it is going to take some work to get good at it and I really need something fairly large to practice on. And this should end up about baby size, so it should be perfect.

Enough justification and on to the blocks! So far there have been 3 blocks posted (another is coming today). First up, the Star of Virginia block:


I decided to go with just 2 colors since I couldn't figure out how to include all 4 and keep it balanced. It was a fairly easy block, but I had never made flying geese this way, I've always used rectangles and squares. It didn't come out perfect, they points don't all meet exactly like they are supposed to, but it looks pretty good.

Next up was the Greek Cross:

I figured since the first used 2 colors, this would use the other 2 and round it out. I like it a lot actually. It is a really cool block that I think I would like to use for a whole quilt at some point.

Finally was a Mosaic block:

I didn't know how much I liked this design, but once it was all together I loved it! I love the colors together. And even thought it was all HSTs and involved a lot of tedious trimming, it came out really well. I don't usually trim my HSTs (I prefer to do the 7/8 thing so they are exact) but I've had to for a bunch of blocks recently. Not surprisingly, they do come out a lot nicer, but I don't know if I could handle it for a whole quilt.

I am loving the bright summery colors! It is going to be a really sweet quilt, and I am thinking some medium-dark gray sashing will really make it.


One thing I really like about all these samplers, there is so much less pressure when you are only doing one block, so you can really focus on it and make it perfect knowing that you only have to do it once. At least that's how I feel about it. I am really looking forward to the next 3 blocks. They should be getting harder this week I think so we'll see how it goes.