"Made Ya Look" at Blues! upcycled blues top #8 finished
I was trying to finish up using up my blues before the kids got back. Sadly, I didn't get finished with them all - but I can continue to work on something when they are here - I have several things in mind. :)
Here's a bit of back story.
In my 2" strips series, where I decided to work on using up my 2 large bags of 2" strips starting in 2015, I made a top I called "Made Ya Look" - all low volume fabrics. I had so many of them! It was a super simple quilt and I never made up a pattern for it. It looked like this:
It was surprisingly popular among people on the Facebook group where I showed it. People said it made them think of their grandma's quilt. I suppose because they got the sense that it was faded. However, it isn't really faded - I just used fabric with a lot of white in it. I made no effort to make a special design - just all low volume fabrics like this -
I found myself with a lot of blue and whites - especially because I had a lot of men's shirts - and many of them were blue stripes on a white background. I knew it wouldn't be as interesting as my original "Made Ya Look" quilt - but I made one anyway.
The second one I made - a smaller one that we used in our give away in June.
It's the third one of these I've made now - I made the original Made Ya Look, then I made a smaller one that we gave away last June as part of the Quilted Twins promotional and now this one. I added a piano key border to this one.
And to be completely honest, I was struggling to find pieces for the border by the time I got there! That's a good thing! Very good!
A close up of the squares. When choosing fabrics for this one, I looked for things with a white or off white background - I tried to stay away from tan or light yellow background- though there are some fuzzy gray areas with that interpretation. In the end, it's my quilt - I can put whatever fabrics I wanted to in it!
I decided to make this one a bit different from the last one by putting a light blue border on and then a row of piano keys. I really wanted to USE UP the last of these pretty boring low volume blue and white fabrics I have. I almost succeeded, by the way!
This picture shows the current status of the project - with the first 8 upcycled blues tops finished. There are all types and styles here - well, not ALL types and styles.
I was considering today what I've not done and I've got some ideas for future ones -from the recently located upcycled blue fabrics that I didn't realize I had until a few days ago.
I've got one more top finished - it was a quick one - and another one with the squares mostly cut out - big squares - will be using 3.5" squares for that one. That's an unusual size for me - I a am not sure I've made a quilt with 3.5" squares before - at least not all 3.5" squares!
So stay tuned!
These are in order of completion with Made Ya Look on the far right.
I finally wrote up a pattern for the original Made Ya Look - I hadn't done it previously because it didn't feel like it was necessary since it was so easy.
I've uploaded it now and you can use it to make the blue one if you want.
I did make the blue one however, by making 16 patches and then sewing 4 of those together to make a 64 patch (and not a 10x10 layout like I did with the original Made Ya Look). The end result will look the same. With the blue one I also added a piano key border after putting a light blue 2" border around the low volume blocks. I simply cut the pieces 2"x6.5" and sewed them on. If you need instructions on how to do a piano key border check out Periscope pattern.
And that's what's been happening in my part of the world - at least with regards to quilting!
Don't forget - if you need something for your own projects to check out what my sis has for you over in the fabrics section!