Vintage Circus

Happy Friday! In case you are wondering, I am doing much better by now and hopefully the dr. will tell me I am good to go today *crosses fingers*. I have still been trying to take it easy so things are still going a bit slower then I'd like, but that's okay. In fact, I wasn't sure I could get this quilt done to post today, but somehow I managed it!

This quilt is one of those things that I have been thinking about for quite a while. Months ago now, I got a big pile of fabric that had belonged to the great great grandmother of a friend of a friend. I think I mentioned it before, as a bunch of it got used in my scrappy triangle quilt. In any case, one of the random things in there was some vintage circus fabric. It is something that everyone else would have thrown away but I was convinced I could make a nice baby blanket out of it so I grabbed it up. I knew I wanted to highlight the cute animals and clowns and rocking horses so I was just going to do a simple patchwork blanket. Then I got the brilliant idea of throwing in some diamond-in-square blocks. And then it sat for what feels like forever before I got around to making it.

It was really my first stash quilt and it was so much fun! I pulled a few fabrics that went with the clowns and then rounded it out with some yellow and green from there. It was nice to actually have a fabric selection to be able to do that instead of my usual method of just buying what I need. I really think I am going to work on some stash building so I can keep that up. I loved it and it was nice to mix collections more, something that is hard to do which ordering online (at least for me it is, they are never quite the color I think they are). 

I started with the diamond blocks. I actually used farmers wife templates that I enlarged because it seemed easier that way. And it was, but if I were to do it again, I think I would paper piece those blocks because I had a lot of trouble with stretching and pulling, especially on the older fabric which is a polyester blend that got wonky pretty easy anyway. But anyway, I got those done and they came out to 7" so I cut the rest of my squares and got to work. It came together so quickly and came out to a nice 39" square, which seems perfect for a little baby blanket. The back is a big chunk of the vintage fabric. I added borders because it was a bit small, but it got all wonky and stretched and just generally didn't work out all that great. Then I quilted it, which didn't help since I ended up with quite a few {obvious} puckers at the points where the lines cross. Which is why I tend to avoid quilting like this. *sigh* oh well. I still haven't had the chance to wash it so I am still hoping that will make it better....and that it won't fall apart haha. Still, I really like it!

So there you go. I am glad that is off my list even though I don't think I have a particular plan for it at the moment. I'll probably hang on to it for a while since I am totally in love with it. This weekend I am hoping to put the top of my skill builder together and if I am lucky, I will stumble upon a back for it as well. It has been in progress for so long that I am just itching to see it come together. And if I can get the top done, I will be at least close to my goal of having it done by the end of July. Hope you have a lovely weekend!