Surprised Me

The quilt top came together nicely without a pattern. I don't really have purples that were requested and found this piece that worked for a background, borders and potentially the binding. It seems to photograph almost a gray but it reminds me of a grape soda. I used every scrap of purple I could find in my stash. The big challenge is what to do with the back!

It lays across my queen size bed, and will be a personal lap quilt when finished. I have yet to go through the bins to see what will work for the backing. A lot of the 2.5" squares went for the blocks and most of the 6" squares made up the second border. I really like the look of it and hope she will too. It will look nice with a diagonal channel quilted stitch. This is the size limit I want just to make it easy on myself when I am at the machine.

There are certain colors that are not in my stash. Remembering that what I received from others came from women who might have liked a fabric in the store and then either never used it or used very little of what they purchased. I know it is the practice of many women to buy just a little extra in case something changes. And that is a smart practice. If you don't finish your project in a timely fashion and run out of a fabric on it, chances are that the fabric store will have sold out. Usually they only buy one bolt of a fabric and the total yardage is less than 10 and more often 8 yards.

This back will take about 5-6 yards total. I don't have anything that big any more. Or at least I don't think so.