Fall Quilt Festival

My entry for Amy's Fall Quilt Festival is the quilt top I made on Saturday, 'Snippets.' The story isn't special, but it's the story of how I work. Remember these pincushions? Well, that's where this quilt began. The "snippets", the centers of the blocks, are leftovers from my pincushion making session. The route to this quilt was a bit circuitous.
With the pincushion leftovers, I put them together sort of like this quilt (I've been thinking about snippets for awhile.) I used a recycled linen dress for the background. I ended up with two 20" square blocks that I fully intended to make into pillows. After looking at them on the design wall I didn't love them, in fact I didn't even like them. So, out came the rotary cutter (I didn't take the time to rip), I sliced and diced and ended up with a bunch of snippets. I sewed some together to lengthen them. I was thinking elongate...so I did. I used the rest of the dress to frame the new snippets. So far, so good. I was liking what I saw. I wanted some color, so next step was to add more sashing. I looked inside the snippets and pulled some great red and blue fabric from my stash...dots, numbers, pez, all sorts of snazzy fabric. I sashed ALL of the blocks in red and blue and put them on the design wall, stood back and my heart sank. That wasn't it at all. The snazzy prints overwhelmed the snippets. In fact, they simply disappeared.

At that point my hubby brought down Saturday's mail. It was my fabric order from Anina and in that package was a yard of Michael Miller's garden pindots. I pinned the fabric on the design wall...that was it, so more slashing...again no ripping, I cut and slashed and then I resashed the snippets. I would love to say that the blue block was a design decision, but I simply ran out of the pindots. It's serendipity, though...I love that one blue block.
The red pindots sparkle from across the room, and seem to beckon you to look closer at the snippets. That's what I wanted. At this point I wanted more sashing...I wanted the blocks to stand out, but the linen dress was gone, so I grabbed some natural osnaburg and sashed some more. At that point the blocks were 12" wide, but I decided they were too wide...so I slashed some more...down to 9" and then I framed them with 3.5 inch strips. Came out to be an exact crib size. How's that for planning? Not!
Each of the center snippets are different. Different heights, different widths.
So there were a few more pieces on the cutting table. I needed a few blocks for the back, so I sliced and diced and patched and pieced and made 3 blocks for the back. I love that bias cut and sewn snippet. So much fun!
I need to find some fabric for the back and then I'm off to quilt. I love this quilt. Check out the other amazing entries in the festival. A few have brought tears to my eyes. Thanks Amy!