Postage Stamp/Picnic Quilt w/nod to those fab 30s ...;-)

A quilt for Me!  It occurred to me last week, after delivering the DGD Jade's Memory T-shirt quilt on 'Move-IN' day at college, and while wondering 'what' I was going to work on next...I hadn't made ME a quilt in almost ten (10) years!  Perhaps it was time ;-)

And I knew just the one I wanted to create - one I'd seen recently in the BIG Book of Strip Quilts:

Finally - a BIG Book for Strippers!

Like many, I've ALWAYS wanted my very own Postage Stamp quilt.  And I always saw a Postage Stamp as the perfect family Picnic quilt.

Typically, Postage Stamp quilts are comprised of 1" squares of a variety of fabrics and prints.  Novelty prints, and especially vintage fabrics, are some of the favorites routinely used to create these colorful wonders.  This particular postage stamp quilt - aptly named 'Basic Postage', was a little different with a neat twist:

'Basic Postage' from the BIG Book of Strip Quilts

Can you see the 'twist' in this colorful Postage Stamp quilt?  Not only are the one-inch blocks amped up to 2" size, they are also blended with 4" blocks for a neat twist - which adds a nice balance, especially when used with a 'blender/background' fabric, but also gobbles up ALOT of space!  In NO time at all, I knew I could quickly create this colorful wonder, utilizing some 1930's Reproduction fabrics I'd been saving for just such a FUN quilting feat!

I immediately launched on a fabric hunt, scouring through fabric bins and storage tubs of stash until I found exactly what I was looking for and started pressing, cutting, seaming and pressing once again my fabric choices:

Fabric choices seamed and pressed - ready to be cut into units

Strips are cut and sewn into 4-patches, center seams are 'twisted' to ensure they lay nice & flat:

4-patch seams do the 'twist'

Once pressed and twisted, sewn to the 4" blocks:

Ready to be sewn into blocks!

While strip sewing, pressing and cutting, I couldn't help but smile while daydreaming about the day this special FUN quilt would be ALL finished up and ready for its first of many Fall picnics with my family, and especially my DGD, Jade.  When I mentioned it to her on one of our first visits seeing her at school in the middle of her first week at school, she smiled one of her BIG beautiful grins and said, "I'd love to go on a picnic w/you, Grammy!"

Alrighty then, time to get busy sewing!  And sew I did!  In eight (8) days, this is what I came up with:

Interior of the Postage Stamp/Picnic quilt - ready for borders

Time to check-out some border options:

Border possibilities - including piano keys

I knew I wanted to incorporate the piano keys - they were included in the original Basic Postage pattern design and I LOVE piano key borders!  I even like quilting them!!  But I also knew, I wanted this quilt to be BIG - to accommodate our family and any/ALL picnics we would enjoy having.  Plus, it could double as a table covering in the Betty Boop quilting studio during the winter months...

This will do nicely:

8-Day Postage Stamp/Picnic quilt top - ready for quilting!

It was one busy week!  In between sewing, cutting, pressing and more cutting & pressing...life went on - including being the first week of the DGD going off to college, one of the largest Power Balls in history (yep, I bought a couple of Power Ball tickets.  Nope I didn't win NOTHIN'), got to eat supper with the DGD after, sewed furiously as Hurricane Harvey hit with a vengeance - Oh how I pray for those affected in any way by that horrific hurricane/tropical storm, and decided I would probably make at least one quilt for a Hurricane Harvey survivor, and I 'think' I know just the pattern I'll use...I'll share that with you in an upcoming post, once I make those final fabric/pattern decisions.

In the meantime...time to quilt!

Later,
~Deb