My "High Five" from Sunday Morning Quilts

Do you ever have - or see - an idea you want to try, begin it, then have second thoughts about it? Was it a bad idea because of your abilities or the materials you have? Will it work? Do you decide to quit, then reconsider, and work on it a little longer just to see how it will turn out if you keep going?

This happened to me. I saw "High Five" in Sunday Morning Quilts and fell in love with it. I had been looking for an idea for a baby quilt. I began. I wasn't sure. I almost quit but I decided to persevere and not judge the finished product by a few blocks.


This quilt is about one fourth the size of the one in the book. Because it's so small I decided to make and sew four tiny blocks to equal one 5" block. I made five of them and scattered them on the quilt (instead of making five large blocks as in the original).

Now that it's finished I see ways I could have improved it. I would shift colors for a little more balance. In the next one I will try to keep the color range within each block closer. And I will take more care in the placement of the blocks.

This is probably one of the most fun quilts I've ever made. I love playing with color and I love scrappy. I have plenty of scraps but I found I had to buy quarter yards of a few colors to bolster my lack (particularly of blue and orange). I think log cabin-style blocks take longer to make than some other patterns - stitch, iron, cut, repeat several times per block for 280 blocks.

This quilt was hand quilted. I used an improvised (unmarked) fan pattern. Because the quilt is so busy I thought a quiet, overall pattern would be best. I love it but I think an outline stitch would be calmer (but boring to quilt!).

Amanda Jean Nyberg of Crazy Mom Quilts and Cheryl Arkison of Dining Room Empire are the authors of the fabulous Sunday Morning Quilts. Amanda Jean is hosting a link party (which ends the evening of July 28, 2012) for those who have made quilts from the book and written blog posts. I have enjoyed seeing others' interpretations of the patterns and ideas. Thank you, Amanda Jean and Cheryl.