friday finish - strawberry social!

It's done! The Strawberry Social top is completely assembled!

One of my all time favorite Flower Sugar prints. 

It's always an extra-good Friday when I finish a quilt top, and this is my second finish this month! I know that I say I love all my quilt tops, but I really, really love this one. I had fun sewing every single berry. I used all my favorite reds and pinks from Pam Kitty Morning, Lori Holt, Flower Sugar and Bonnie & Camille. The pink-on-white dotted background is from the Pam Kitty Picnic collection. 

The pattern is Strawberry Social by Margot Languedoc's The Pattern Basket. Her instructions are very clear and easy to understand, although the leaf portion takes a bit of concentration.

I also made my quilt larger than the pattern. I think that it's the perfect sofa size. My top contains 36 berries and measures 62" x 75" - the pattern measures 53" x 66" and has 25 berries. 

Remember the two experimental blocks? I decided that they weren't ripe enough for this quilt, and so I turned them into jam. Ha ha! I'm glad that I tried something quirky, but, um, no... just too weird. 

I love this recipe print from Lori Holt's Bake Sale collection.

Yes, that's a strawberry covered in cherries!

Thanks for taking the time to visit with me today! I'm linking up with Finish It Up Fridays at Crazy Mom Quilts. I'll check out what everybody else finished this week after lunch. And maybe dessert. A strawberry sundae? A strawberry shake? I saw strawberry cream filled Twinkies at my grocery store last night, but they scare me.

socializing with strawberry social

I spent some time socializing with the Strawberry Social quilt blocks last night. I'm aiming for two quilt finishes this month! 

Here they are on my "design floor." I almost started to sew them randomly (it's hot and humid and I'm lazy) but I knew that the only way to evenly distribute the pinks and reds was to do the layout. Then the berries were sewn into vertical strips with more of that cute pink dot from Pam Kitty Picnic. 

And of course, the rows are marked with color coordinating Post-it notes. Actually, that was just a happy coincidence! Six rows of fresh berries! I'm making my quilt larger than the pattern, so I have 36 berries set 6 across and 6 down. 

Soon I'll need to choose border fabrics! Here are the leading candidates. I'm thinking of a narrow inner border of the green print and a wider outer border of the white wreath print. The two plaids are the binding options. I'm sure that the quilt will tell me what it needs once it's fully sashed. Your quilts talk to you, too, right?!

Can I have a second Friday finish for July? Stay tuned! And see what other quilters are working on this week at Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Finally, thanks so much for all the Butterscotch Tart quilt love! I really appreciate the nice comments and emails. Making that quilt was a fun challenge, and I'm glad that you enjoyed watching my progress.

back to the strawberry patch

I've completed all 25 strawberry blocks for my Strawberry Social quilt!

But I'm not ready to leave the strawberry patch! The quilt pattern finishes at 53" x 66." I really want this quilt to be larger. I have red and pink fabrics in my stash that I haven't even used yet, and there are some, like Lori Holt's "Bake Sale" red recipe print that I would like to repeat. (It's the bottom left corner.)

Last night I asked my Instagram followers how they feel about making the quilt larger. The feedback came in quickly, and nearly everybody had a humorous way of reminding me that we can never have too many strawberries. And some people thought that my quilt would be a nice decoration in THEIR homes. Haha. So, larger it will be! But yes, maybe a whole bed-sized strawberry quilt would be too many strawberries. My goal is now sofa-napping size. I'll need another 17 strawberries for a quilt that measures 69" x 76", or another 24 strawberries for a quilt that measures 69" x 87."

I'm ready for the real strawberry season to begin... I need to check out the farmer's market! And as I await the crop of strawberries, I think that there's more rotary trimming in the near future...

more strawberries

If you're joining me today from Sherri's and Sinta's blogs, welcome! I'm glad that you hopped over to see the finished mini Dwell pillow. It was a fun project to work on. Just scroll on down to my entry from a few days ago to read all about it.  

I'm currently adding to my strawberry collection for the Strawberry Social quilt! I've made another ten berries this week.

Red, ripe strawberries.

Not-quite-ripe pink strawberries.

And the, um, confused berries. 

The striped strawberry and double strawberry were interesting experiments. I love the stripe and double berry fabrics. I wasn't sure that they would look good when chopped into tiny pieces for the berry cap, so I substituted similar fabrics. And now I think that those two berries just look confused! They might find themselves on the back of the finished quilt. (Hey, that's better than the way I treat imperfect real strawberries!)

I am loving how the whole berry bunch looks grouped together! 

The finished Strawberry Social quilt has 25 berries, but I'm determined to keep on sewing. How big can I make this quilt? The pattern is by Margot Languedoc and can be purchased from her website. I'm sewing with an assortment of Pam Kitty Morning, Lori Holt, and Riley Blake ginghams, and I plan to add some Flower Sugar into my next batch. 

Thank you for stopping by today!

strawberry social

I'm getting a jump on summer with my new Strawberry Social quilt!

I first fell in love with this pattern last summer when I saw Pam's version. Seriously, I love it. And then it started popping up around the internet. The pattern is by Margot Languedoc's The Pattern Basket. I bought the pattern immediately, but I was busy working on Christmas quilts (in July!) and just couldn't look at any more red and green fabric. Well, last week I thought of this pattern as I was stirring fresh strawberries into my morning oatmeal. You know that moment when strawberries are almost TOO ripe and the fragrance completely fills your kitchen? 

It's another excuse to use my favorite color combination! I started with three strawberries and got hooked. 

It just makes me happy working on these. I can imagine the upcoming crop of strawberries that I'll pick up at the farmer's market in Union Square. Isn't everything better with a strawberry? Ice cream, pancakes and waffles, jams, shortcakes with whipped cream, pies, cheesecake (like this one from Juniors in Brooklyn). I even like the freeze-dried strawberries in Special K!

And now for the technical part. Margot's pattern has a tricky method for making that leaf section. I couldn't understand how the technique could possibly work. I finally just trusted the pattern and started sewing. It's genius, really. The sub-units are made larger than needed and trimmed using a square ruler. All of the seams nest perfectly. The finished quilt needs 25 strawberries. I really want to just keep sewing and see how large I can get this! I have yards of the perfect backing, so that's taken care of (it's a red and white recipe print!) But what if I deplete my pink, green and red stash?! 

If you'd like to make a quilt like this, I found a few kits online. There's a Pam Kitty version at Fat Quarter Shop and a  beautiful version at Shabby Fabrics which resembles the original pattern. Or just dive into your scraps like I did!