Aaaand We're Back!

Did you miss me?  I've basically been on vacation for the past 3 weeks, which meant not much quilting and not much blogging.  I've enjoyed myself immensely, but tomorrow I go back to work and things around here will be back to regularly scheduled programming.

Two of my quilt are going to their forever homes tomorrow. Is there anything better than quilts ready for gifting?

The Sherwood Forest quilt is for a wedding, along with a couple of jars of pepper jelly.

The Sherbet Lane quilt is going for a new baby, along with a couple of bibs and tie-dye onesies.

And on the design wall this week, yup, it's still Texas!  I am so ready to have this thing together so I can use my design wall again!  Here is a close up of central Texas. Only one block to go, I still need to do the Valley.

Although I am not particularly ready to go back to work, I am looking forward to getting back to my routine sewing :) 

Finished! Sherbet Lane

Here it is, my first official finish of 2014!

I decided to name this sweet little baby quilt Sherbet Lane, because of the soft colors and the print fabric line, which is "Road 15" by Sweetwater for Moda.

This quilt is a "stack and slash" pattern. I based my design off the instructions in this post, but modified the measurements to work with charm squares as the centers.

If you are interested in making a similar quilt, I used 5" charm squares surrounded by 3.5" strips.  Then I made cuts 4.5" from 2 adjacent sides. Rearrange and sew the pieces back together to yield ~10.5" unfinished blocks.  A charm pack typically has 42 squares, so one pack would be enough for a 42 block quilt, set in a 6x7 layout and finishing at a large lap size.

This quilt finished at a nice baby size, 40"x50" prior to washing.  I quilted it with the same swirling pattern that I've used on other quilts lately, from Angela Walters book (I really can't say enough good things about this book!)  I love how much more natural FMQ is getting as I practice.

The solids are all Moda, from my LQS.  The /white one is Fog, the yellow one is Cream, the green is Avalon, and I don't know the name of the grey/blue.  I love the combo of these soft colors together. May have to make another quilt with them soon!  The quilt is backed in a nice blue plaid homespun and machine bound in the green solid used on the front.

I'm linking to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.