Fat Quarterly Quiltalong Project

Are you familiar with Fat Quarterly magazine? Oh, you should be!! It's chock full of quilty goodness. I was checking out their latest issue Solids all excited to see my friend Victoria's editorial contribution and a fabulous quilt made from my friend Jan's organic cotton fabric. Then I came across the section highlighting their 2010 quiltalong and thought, hey, I may actually be able to manage that pattern! I could see how other people were doing theirs and I thought it would be a great project for Nature Walk.

So, I'm a little late in the game, and I'm not really "quilting along" so much as "quilting at my own pace"- which is to say: frantically. I immediately set out to cut the pieces and made a royal mistake on all the rectangles- they were .25" shy on the long horizontal side- oh yes- all the pieces - which meant I had to do some crazy piecing - which in my mind showed... *sigh*. After that cutting fiasco, I decided to hand cut my squares: yup, it was as tedious as I thought it would be. But after that, I was in action mode. I was sewing up a storm: crookedly, awkwardly, spastically. But I got it done. And as I got it done I realized that my layout lacked a bit of finesse. It also lacked solids which would have made it pop nicely. If I were to do it again, there would be a whole lot of changes... however, in and of itself- and the fact that I will NOT be redoing the quilt- I am quite pleased with the outcome. I backed it with the green polka dot from Forest Friends Flannel which gives this lap quilt a nice heft. I have plans to give it to my boys, so I know they won't worry about my persnickity ideals. Nature Walk will go super in their newly updated Rumpus Room.

Oh! And some great news!! Nature Walk should be in our warehouse this Friday which means our lovely customers should have it next week some time. If you're aiming to make something, please be sure to add it to our Flickr pool so we can see!!