Blogger's Quilt Festival :: Keychain {Scrappy Quilts Category}

Meet "Keychain," my entry into the Scrappy Quilts category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy/Amy's Creative Side. Even though scrappy quilts are often a riot of color, Keychain is indeed a scrappy quilt and the fun twist is that they weren't even my scraps!! A while back I admired the Oakshott Italy that Cindy/Live a Colorful Life was using, and was thrilled when she offered to send me her scraps. I opted for a controlled scrappy look for my small quilt, and used every last inch of what she sent.

My inspiration came from a chair at my local coffee shop. I often take random photos like this, but on this occasion, I actually went home and tried sewing it up and eventually created a tutorial for the "Greek Key" block.

The scraps I had to work with consisted of 7 colors and I used 6 to make the larger improv blocks, incorporating Essex linen in natural as a background. It was after I'd sewn those 6 blocks together than I came up with the idea for the small unraveling 'key' in the bottom corner. Though kind of random, I thought it added some unexpected fun.

For the quilting, I used Aurifil 50wt #5021, which was a lovely match for the Essex natural, yet subtle enough not to be distracting on the colored spirals. I did very little marking, so lines are a little wobbly here and there - just the look I was after as I stitched a wonky, uneven square spiral around the quilt.

To keep the focus on the spirals, I used more Essex for the binding, while using the last little piece of the reddish Oakshott Italy to make a short bit of matched binding, one of my favorite little details.

This quilt just begged to be washed up when done, and boy did that Oakshott and Essex soften and crinkle up nicely together. All in all, this was an enjoyable exercise for me - a bit of a stretch, but with satisfying results.

Quilt stats: Finished size: 23" x 27" Pattern: my original design
Fabric: Oakshott Italy, Essex linen in natural
Thread: Aurifil 50wt #5021 (light grey) Quilted by: myself, using a walking foot
Helpful tutorials: Greek Key Block, Straight Matched Binding
Category: Scrappy Quilts
My previous entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival: Red Hots, 10/27/14 Unlocked, 5/16/14 Crazy Rainbow, 10/25/13
Absolutely Mod Pop, 5/19/13 HST Love, 5/17/13 The Stars of Summer, 10/26/12 Hopscotch, 5/19/12 Mango Revisited, 10/28/11 Supernova, 5/13/11