BQF: marley of the sea {scrappy}

My second entry into the Spring 2014 Blogger's Quilt Festival (scrappy category) has certainly gotten less face time than the first.  But it's still one of my favorites.

This quilt—Marley of the Sea—was my first design as "quilter" for my do.Good circle (Believe).  For starters, I have to say I can't really take credit for the quilt as the majority of the blocks were stitched by my incredible beemates.  So right off the bat, shout out to the (old) group, who channeled their "inner Cath of Wombat Quilts" (my most telling request) with great success:  Allison, Ben, Big Mama Quilts, Debora, Lisa, Nicole, Tara, and Vanessa.

Now, back to the quilt.  Per usual, my first course of action as the 6" blocks came in was to sort by (background) value:  light gray, medium gray, dark gray.  As the three little stacks grew, I cut a few more blocks to even them off and then started to think about layout.

Julie's original Marley ("Three Little Birds") block

I originally intended to use Julie of 627handwork's exact block layout, but with 20-some odd blocks together there was a little too much chaos with the directional change alongside the haphazardly distributed blues (hard as I tried, in the end I was only able to color sort by one of the two block colors—the blues lost out).

But rather than abandon the layout entirely and start from scratch, I quickly turned the blocks so they all faced the same direction.  Just to see how it looked. And presto—chaos contained.  So I stitched the top together, straightline quilted it with Aurifil 2021 and then snapped these wintry shots.

The only thing left to do—aside from dusting off the snow :o)—was to stitch in a label and send it off to My Very Own Blanket in Ohio.  And I'm happy to report that that's the last time I'll be shipping a blanket to the organization, because yours truly has volunteered to be the the local (Indianapolis) coordinator.  Which means that all future do.Good and #opgivewarmth quilts that come out of this house only require a quick car ride to reach equally deserving foster children in our local community.

Thanks again for stopping by, and I hope you have (or have had) time to peruse the other quilts "hanging" in the show :)

{mini}{small}{large}{applique}{art}{hand quilted}{home machine quilted}{modern}{original design}{ROYGBIV}{scrappy}