summer’s end quilt

This quilt has been in the works for a while, and in my head I’d deemed it our ‘end of summer/early fall’ quilt.  It’s primarily made from a charm pack of American Jane Happy Campers, and I will allow myself the disclaimer that this isn’t my first choice for binding.  But it’s leftover from a skirt I made earlier this summer, and I like the thriftiness of quilting with clothing fabric scraps!

Have I mentioned that my kids are a little blanket crazy?  Ellie in particular.  She can’t see a quilt without asking to be wrapped up in it.  She loves them.  She’s forever going into the studio and pointing at one in the stack and demanding that I drag it out for her.  So when Will and Ellie saw me taking a new quilt out of the dryer, they both got so excited I thought God special ordered these two blanket lovers just for me.  “It’s really beautiful, Mom–does it make a pattern?” (he looks it over) “Nope–it doesn’t make a pattern.  But I still really like it.  Can I sit with it on the sofa?”  (Meanwhile Ellie is just pointing at it and shouting and trying to grab it away from us.)

On the back I got to use up every last square (impressive since I made this without any plan whatsoever–just hacked up a bunch of coordinating 5″ solids and started sewing).  I went with the color of dirt for the solid, since I picture this getting lots of outdoor time.

My original plan for the quilting had been to do something to mirror the plaid print–a plaid sort of quilting pattern.  Except some of us have a tendency to drink wine at night while we quilt and I completely forgot about this plan and just started quilting it at regular intervals.  So I decided to rock and roll with the new direction and thought I’d just cross each block diagonally, but after finishing all of the lines going in one direction I figured that was good enough (again with the wine’s influence, probably).

I finished it unintentionally on the very last day of August, which I think suits this Summer’s End quilt perfectly!