Friday Finish: Economy Block Quilt

This is a bit of an old finish, but I completely forgot to post about it, which is a crime, because it's one of my favorite quilts.  It actually went right into the normal quilt rotation when it was finished in March, so when the weather turned warm, it got piled up with the rest of the quilts waiting for winter.

Way back in forever ago we had to make a couple economy blocks for our guild lottery.  I made four and just never stopped.  I initially thought I'd just put a few more into the lottery, which would increase my chances of winning, but I couldn't bear the thought that if I lost, I'd lose these blocks.  So I just had to make a quilt for myself.

I pulled out some scraps and some charm packs I'd bought off Instagram, and started fussy cutting centers.  Once I had a couple centers, I'd get some coordinating fabric for the borders, and sew them down.  There was really no color scheme or planning involved, just make a few at a time when there was time.

I'd lay them out occasionally to see how they were going, and I realized after about 25 blocks that there was definitely a saturated color scheme, so I tried to go with that.  I also had a bunch of black fabric that made it into the early rounds of blocks, so I kept going with that, even though I've never really used a lot of black before.

When I got to about 70 blocks, I started really thinking about how to lay them out.  I could have made a smaller quilt with about 120 blocks, but I really didn't think I had another 50 blocks in me.  So I decided to stagger them with blocks of solid, which meant I only had to make 98 blocks to make a 65" x 75" quilt.

I sewed those together, backed it with a nice soft cotton from one of the fancy JoAnn's brands, and did a bunch of straight lines to quilt it.  I started out just doing a line a 1/4" outside the smaller border triangles.  Then I laid it out and realized that it was almost perfect, so a line down the center of those lines would be enough to finish.  I didn't mark anything, so some of the lines aren't perfect, but it's pretty close.

Linking up with Amanda for Finish it up Friday and Quokka Quilts for TGIFF!