“Quilty Fun” and “Small Granny Squares” updates

I am working my way through this book called Quilty Fun. I have to say that while I love the final look of each block, I’m finding the actual quilt top tedious.

I might think I’m weird, but I have found at least two You Tubers who also started this quilt and have never finished it. They started theirs years ago (2017? 2018?) - not just earlier in 2024, like I did. So I feel at least like I’m not alone in that regards.

However, I decided that I had to finish up another row of these rows of blocks for this blog post. I decided to attempt to make the butterfly row.

As I look at the ones I have left, I thought this might be the fastest. Can you tell I’m just not feeling this one? :) As I get closer to getting the rows done, however, I will start “feeling it”, I hope.

The butterfly blocks didn’t really take very long.

There are 13 rows as I can see on the front of the quilt. I have either finished the blocks or made 8 of the rows. So I guess I am over half done with the center rows.

I really should just start combining the rows. I think if I did that, I would feel more like I’m making progress as well.

It’s not a large quilt anyway, and I’m apparently just being very lazy in getting this one done.

However, in my desire to finish this one, I’m happy enough just making a row every now and then and seeing some progress.






 

and these are my Quilty Fun rows finished - Slowly, ever so slowly, I will finish this top.

The 5 rows I have left are the tulips, flying geese, baskets, mittens and leaves. I think I’ll do the mittens row next. I’ll bet the last row I finish will be the flying geese!

It’s pretty much time for me to decide on the outer border. I’m going to use something green or blue, but NOT a gingham. I don’t really care for her border as much as I would if it weren’t a plaid.

I also worked on 20 more of the small granny square blocks. These finish in the quilt at 6” so they are trimmed to 6.5”.

This is the paper I'm writing on. So far I have 112 and I need 182. This means I need 70 more.

So I have 112 Granny Square blocks finished !




Because I want to put a light sashing strip between the blocks, I am considering what fabric to use. I’m deciding between either green or blue. This past week I stopped in at a local fabric store and picked up some Polish light green and light blue solids. I can’t make up my mind.

I’d like to go ahead and decide pretty soon so I can start sewing the sashing strips on one side of each block as I finish them. It will make putting the massive top together much faster.

“Massive” might be a bit of an overstatement. I have this one planned as a 13x14 quilt.

This is my mockup of it with blue as my sashing and darker blue as cornerstones. I’m considering this color arrangement. Obviously I didn’t actully make the blocks all the colors I really have been making. This is a 100”x107” layout.

I guess that is pretty big.

 

Both of these projects were inspired by Lori Holt.

The Quilty Fun row quilt is from her book which we have in our store at www.quiltedtwins.com. The granny squares blocks are small — only 6” and while the idea I’m going to do is inspired by a quit by Lori, as seen in her home tour, I’m not using her pattern. I made a whole quilt of granny squares here a while ago now. I know how to do them! :)

Classic Granny Squares with sashing blocks

This is, however, my first time making such small ones using 1.5” cut squares. (Actually I’ve made many quilts with granny squares to date - they happen to be one of my favorite blocks to make.)

This one will fit in with my other 1.5” strips quilts even though I’m actually not using strips, for the most part (pulled from my bags.) I did look through my huge bag the other day, however, for strips that would work with the other Lori Holt fabrics and/or reproduction (30’s) fabrics look that I’m going for here.

With these little ones, however, I am making a bit bigger edge white pieces and trimming them down as I showed you in the last update.

 

Here are pictures of my trimming the blocks. I really love these little granny square blocks. There is something about them that just appeals to me. I do not know why I like them so much. Actually I like big or small granny squares.

I also like crocheted ones. :)

For these, I just use my 6.5” ruler and tried to center them the best I can as they float a bit inside the 6.5” cut.

So, ever so slowly I’m making progress on these two quilt tops.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!





Becky Petersen3 Comments