My Block is Done!

My quilt block is done! While I have made quilts in the past - I am not a quilter. Not that there's anything wrong with being a quilter, I just don't have the eye. I'm not overly creative on my own. I can take an idea and run about a block with it, but not for miles. Anyway. After reading the "Colors" (scroll down) post at the Quilts for the Kims blog. I started looking for inspiration. Remember last weekend when I only bought fat quarters at JoAnns? Well I look at every quilting magazine in the store and all the books too. Looking for something 'new' and 'non-traditional' that caught my eye. What ended up catching my attention was this Lotus Quilt by Amy Butler. This is a free pattern and I love all the different but in her case matching fabrics. I did a little math to try and avoid one side o the block being too narrow - but that didn't work out. I cut 16 different fabrics into strips 1/5" wide, then I cut those again into 2.5" rectangles. I wanted this block to look very, very random. So I then put all the little rectangles into a basket. I thought they looked very pretty out in the snow :) My thought was that I didn't want two of the same fabrics touching each other at any time during the block. Not horizontally, nor vertically. So, after randomly grabbing fabric out of the basket - I had to actually plan for their random placement. I think I only had to rip 3 little block apart because they were the same. Here you can see them all laid out on my ironing board, trying to make sure that I don't have any duplicates. It took awhile to plan it out, but I finally got it all done, there are no two of the same fabrics next to each other, but all the fabrics repeat more than once. I added some green and pink fabric for a little pop - as well as a white brick. This next photo shows all the rows sewn together into strips, but now sewn into a block. I love how much it shrinks once it's actually sewn into a block. My thought is that as Sabine grows up, Kati, Sabine & Penelope can play a version of "Memory" with this block. Can you find another fabric that looks like this? I had fun making this. I will be very interested in seeing the final quilt. Everyone's blocks are so different and I think the blocks and the stories are so incredible. This is a great cause. Thanks for putting it together Patricia and Shanna. Here is a final shot of my block trimmed to 12" square! Finally I'm leaving you today with a funny shot of the dogs. This is both Beau & Lucy trying to both get their schnozes into an empty Ice Cream box. They couldn't decide who's turn it was to get it - so The Princess held the box and they shared.