In And Out or Birds in Trees

There's not so much new on the crafting front right now. I'm working on the second of my "Sprung" socks and I've made it through the second pattern repeat of my Antique AbFab. I made no progress at all on my Blooming 9 Patch quilt, but I did finally get my hands on all the things I need to quilt my Serenity quilt. And I've bought some other fabric, too. No, we will not say anything about developing a fabric stash. Not at all. I'm just thinking ahead to my next projects. Ahem.

In and Out Pattern from Blue Underground Studios

This pattern is the general idea for the quilt top. "In and Out" has two different types of squares: one with a large piece of focus fabric bordered with a narrow border, the other with a small center square where the border fabric has the starring role. These squares are pieced and then alternated.

Fabrics for the In and Out Quilt

This is the collection of fabrics that I purchased to test out. My working title/idea for this project is "Birds in Trees". The top two fabrics will be my primary focus fabrics. It's impossible to tell from the pictures, but the red floral looking fabric actually has pairs of birds on it. I'm going to fussy cut center squares for the squares with the narrow borders from this fabric. The fabric with the cream colored background has a tree trunk motif (closer picture below) and is also going to be used for larger center squares. I'm going to alternate the large square blocks bird, tree, bird, etc. If I decide I need a bit more diversity, the brown fabric that is the 4th from the top, has leaf motifs and I will scatter a few of those around, too.

The borders and the squares with the small center fabric will be composed from the rest of the fabrics. I'm more or less going to mix and match those in whatever way feels right to me. I'm thinking that I may actually scan the fabrics in and play with them on my computer screen before I start cutting anything. But I did get a reasonable amount of excess fabric so that I could play a bit. I'd like the final size of this quilt to be in the same range as Serenity -- a good quilt for curling up on a couch with.

Some of My Favorites in the Group

This quilt was inspired by the fabric with the bird print. Birds are pretty popular in my family, and when I saw the fabric I knew it had to come home with me. After that, I started to search through the fabrics at Quiltology looking for fabrics that co-ordinated and fit the theme I had building in my head. In the end, I ended up with batiks, modern prints, and some more traditional looking quilt fabrics. The fabrics in the picture above are the ones that appeal to me the most at the moment. I love how the tree trunks give you stripes without really making stripes. And that batik with it's odd pastels really does work with the other fabrics. The other two fabrics come from a collection that Colette found that look like the end papers from books. Ever since they arrived in her shop, I've wanted to do something with them. This quilt will give me the opportunity.

I've told myself that no progress can begin on this project until I either complete Serenity (i.e. get it quilted) or finish my Blooming 9 Patch top. So right now this quilt is just percolating in my brain, and I'm looking forward to getting to work on a new color study in a different set of colors than I normally gravitate to.