An Old UFO--Flimsy done!

Twice a year, the Elgin Piecemakers get together for a sewing day at a local church hall, usually once in the fall and once in the winter.  Our winter sewing day was March 2nd.  I was in a bit of a conundrum trying to figure out what I was going to bring that day to sew until I found a bag of string pieced triangles in a bag on a shelf in my fabric storage area. Several years ago, my husband attended a conference for work and stopped by a local quilting shop to pick up a gift for me.  The ladies in the shop assured him that a Bali Pop jelly roll would be a welcome addition to any quilter's stash.  Soon after getting the strips of fabric, I found a pattern online and sewed sets of four strips together and cut them into triangles.  I'm not sure why they got put away in a bag and stuck on a shelf, but they did not see the light of day until the night before the sewing day as I was rummaging around looking for a project.  The pattern was nowhere in sight and I can't even remember what it was supposed to look like so I decided to play around with the triangles and make a lap quilt with them. 

There was a piece of navy blue fabric in the bag and some of it had been cut into one inch strips so I attached a strip to the edge of each triangle and started laying some of them out on the floor to see how they looked.  I love the colours!

Soon, I had all of the triangles laid out on the floor and I was ready to sew the columns together. I added a narrow strip of blue between each column and there was just enough navy fabric to square off the ends.  I had to do some piecing to stretch the fabric far enough to finish it off.

By the end of the day, I had two columns sewn together and the blue ends on each column.

It didn't take too long to get all of the columns put together...but there was a problem...I ran out of the navy fabric and was not going to be able to add navy side borders on the quilt.   Hmmm.  I found some navy solid in my stash but it did not match exactly.  This past Saturday, I went with a friend to a quilt store in search of a solution.  I brought some of the navy fabric with me, hoping to match it, but no such luck.  The store did not have the right colour of blue in stock.  As I looked through the store, I saw a navy batik fabric and wondered if it would make a good border for the quilt.  I purchased a yard and a bit of the fabric and brought it home.   Perfect!

I used some of the navy solid that I had in my stash for the narrow borders on the two sides of the quilt and then added a 4" piece of the batik to all 4 sides of the quilt.  I think it looks great and is a wonderful frame for the quilt.

It was not until I had the quilt together that I noticed the 3-D boxes...Do you see them?  Totally cool but totally unintentional!  I already have a plan for quilting this one myself with my walking foot but first I need to figure out a backing.  It will be a generous lap sized quilt.

BTW...I finished of the last of my drunkard's path variations comfort quilt blocks last week as well.  The colours for this one are navy, hunter green and cream.