Scrappy Trip Finish and Great Mail

I finished this one last week, a matter of hours before our guild meeting.

The blanket's a little wrinkly with a giant fold down the middle, but lemme tell ya - it was some friggin' cold outside.... It was downright polar.

Since I was using only scraps for the top, I made sure it would have at least a little continuity and arranged all my block strip so that they progressed from dark to light with a grey, black or navy fabric running down the centre diagonal. They were looking pretty ghastly individually but once I laid them out, they took a different look through the camera lens. I didn't know ahead of time if it would be pretty or horrid so I determined ahead of time, whatever the outcome, it was going to be a blanket for cuddling up at night in the gazebo this summer.  This might have been a mistake to make that decision too early as I got pretty careless with the quilting and binding as a result.... lol.

Apparently, whatever was going on with my hand was so strenuous, I was unable to stand up straight. 

I arranged them light corners to light corners, dark to dark, which gave me this rising/sinking effect.
To emphasize the light and dark effect, I quilted it with lines running through each dark diagonal all through the quilt and then concentric squares through the rest.  Since there's no batting inside, I wanted to be sure I had quilting through each and every square, though it doesn't really show up.   I decided against batting* (which made it much trickier to baste and quilt - slippy!) as I didn't want it to be too heavy for a summer blanket but I did want it to have some coziness to it, so it's backed in a Caravan flannel, which is the only thing I purchased for this quilt. It's bound entirely in leftover binding, which feels pretty good, too!

This flannel sucked me in.  I'm usually not a florals person but this one just makes me happy....

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I was lucky enough to get a copy of Modern Quilts from the Blogging Universe from Audrie at Blue is Bleu. You should read her, if you don't already. Definitely a kindred spirit.

The book is great, and full of people that already populate my RSS reader so it made it that much cooler.... Thanks, Audrie!  I owe you one. And by one, I mean a few. :-)

*Dana at Old Red Barn made some 'outside' quilts last year without batting and I loved that idea...  You should also read Dana's blog. Also a kindred spirit.