Kaleidoscope QAL: Final Layout & Project to Project Design Wall

Usually I just use my floor to figure out how I want all my quilt pieces to go, but with all the pieces of the Kaleidoscope quilt, I knew the floor would not work. Then I saw over at Oh Franson that Elizabeth made her current design wall by simply pinning batting to the wall. SWEET! I can do that! So I grabbed a random piece and pinned it to the wall by my stairs and got this.

lol. It makes me laugh... it's pretty lame. ;)

But at least I could kind of get an idea of what I want to do...

I knew that to be able to arrange my whole quilt I would need a bigger piece of batting, but didn't want to cut out a random size and end up wasting a bunch of batting. Then it hit me! Duh! Just cut out the batting that I'll use for this quilt and pin that to the wall! 

Elizabeth at Don't Call Me Betsy,has the final dimensions on her blog, so I cut out a piece a few inches bigger and pinned it to the wall above our bed! :) (that way I know  no little  hands will be playing with it.)

And voile! I think I have the final layout for my quilt. 

What do you think? It's a bit different than originally planned, and keeps my eyes a little more busy, but I think it's a little more interesting. Can you see the pattern that I used to arrange all the colors?

"Hubert" wanted to get in on the action too.

So here's my new Design Wall trick:

Whenever I have a new project or quilt, and I know what the final size will be, which I usually always do, cut the batting out for it and pin it to the wall. That way I don't have to keep something up permanently, which I don't really have a wall for right now. But I'll always have something that fits my current project.

PLUS, maybe the ever changing quilt blocks above our bed will be just that much more incentive for my hubby to let me have my own craft room when we get a bigger place. ;)

Made It: Picnic Blanket, in progress

The weather has been so nice, well, it was so nice for a while. One day my neighbor and I ate lunch outside with our kiddos and she mentioned needing a larger picnic blanket, to which I agreed. On another note I've been having an itch to de-clutter and use up my fabric and organize. I've had this Cake Layer of Moda's Wee Woodland  line that I haven't been able to figure out what to do with. After the conversation with my neighbor friend I knew exactly what I could do. I started on a picnic blanket!

This is probably the quickest, and biggest, quilt I've done. The fabric squares were already cut to 10"x10". I cut 2.5" strips to go between them all (Also fabric I had in my stash). Since this picture I've added white strips to the top and sides (already had the strip on the bottom). All in all it's HUGE! Perfect for a picnic blanket!

It's a little Autumn-y, but that's ok. I think it will be fun to have outside.

Hunter really wanted me to take a picture of his ball. :)

 Then he started throwing it up in the air while I was trying to take the picture... it turned into some craziness. 

Then he rolled himself up in it like a burrito. I guess that's a good sign that it's already a hit with him! :)

For the back I needed 4 yrds of fabric, I debated using different solids that match the front and making a hodge podge of a back, but instead decided to just go the quick way and found some Amy Butler orange in my closet, of which I have the PERFECT amount. It's previous project ended up not happening, and since I had no other use for it, even though it doesn't match perfectly, it will do fine on the grass. :)

Now all I have left is to layer it and quilt it! Wish me luck! This thing is so big, and it will be interesting to see how it works to quilt it on my little machine.

p.s. I Really LOVE being able to make things that I don't need to buy more supplies for! (ok, except the batting), but otherwise it feels so good to use up what I already have on hand! 

And trust me, I have plenty of that! ;)