Yellow Zig Zag Quilt

I've been waiting to post about this quilt until I could take a picture of the final product, but every time I think about it, the wind is blowing or it's dark outside. Here it is at last.

The pattern is from http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/. Look on the right column, it's the last of the tutorials. Her finished quilt was 46x61. I added some extras on one side to make a 60ish square. I was using up yellow stash fabric, much of which was 1/8th yard pieces that I'd bought for applique. Some of my stripes are made up of 2 or 3 different yellows in the same color intensity.

I started cutting this quilt out on a Saturday, when my fingers were too sore to quilt another stitch by hand. I put a couple hours Sunday finished the strip sets (yellow/white 5.5" squares). It took another session to put together all the squares. I pressed the seams to the dark fabric, which made pressing a challenge as the seams were in seemingly random directions. If I were to make this one again, I think I'd press the seams open. The cutting and piecing can easily be done in one weekend.

I decided to try using a sheet for the backing fabric as well as the neutral color on the front. I had a new 300 thread count twin sheet and used a seam ripper to un-sew the sides of the sheet, then washed it. I figure this gave me enough extra fabric, compared to if I'd cut off the hems, to be equal to 27" of a 45" wide material. I was hoping that there would be enough fabric for the white strips on the front as well as the backing, but fell a little short. Ended up adding a 10" piece of light yellow to get the backing back to 63" square. I'm fairly pleased with the results on the front of the quilt. The sheet fabric is more prone to wrinkling than quliting fabrics, which looks good if the quilting is fairly close together, but not so good with widely spaced stitching. (Who am I kidding....I ALWAYS over-quilt)

I used the spray basting for this quilt. It worked OK since the quilt was kept relatively flat throughout the process. I used a walking foot, and quilted in the ditch, then 3 more lines between, by eye, following the zig zag. The other new product that I used was the Bamboo/Cotton batting. It definitely has a softer drape than 100% cotton, and still shrinks a little, adding to the old fashioned look that I like.

I like this quilt well enough to consider making it in black and raspberry.

Next pieced quilt in the line up is a Blue & White, Stash Fabric, Double Irish Chain. I have strips cut. Put together some of the strip sets, but messed up the order on one of the 3, so seams will have to be unpicked and resewn. I'm also certain that I don't have enough of the 2 main fabrics that I'm using, so there will be some creative piecing options as the quilt grows.