sunshine and zigzags

It seems I have been working on this quilt for quite some time now {yikes! April?!}. Well, I got another kick in the pants to get sewing just last week. I was excited to win a give away Rita hosted on her blog - Red Pepper Quilts. With pretty new fabric on its way to me I thought I better tackle my other projects so I might have a shot at sewing with the new fabric some time in the foreseeable future. Waiting projects include another quilt started before this one, seat cushions, more napkins, a table runner {that I'm pretty sure we've decided we don't want}, ... the list goes on.

Toping the list, because I'm excited about it, is my Kona Cottons guild challenge quilt. I've had the top done for months and months and had been excited to move onto the back but then I stalled. Fabric is expensive! And a big quilt back takes lots of fabric. Last weekend I went with the ingenious {yet, wholly unoriginal} idea of using a bed sheet for the back. So, I found my way to Target and their seasonal display of flannel sheet sets. A cozy gray one came home with me.

I knew I wanted to use up the charms from the brights pack that I hadn't included on the front {mainly, many many pink ones}. And I wanted a big zig zag. I cut more 5 inch squares from the additional fabric I bought, plus a zillion {I counted!} 5 inch squares from the gray flannel. Stacked, diagonal lines drawn, I feed them chain piece style through my machine. A big, long floppy banner of colorfully squares of fabric. Cut, press, trim and I had a zillion times two half square triangle blocks

On to the layout!

The first night I played around with the blocks and Lukas helped me too, but we didn't seem to come up with anything that really worked well. {And I ended up staying up too late!} Work was busy the next day and I didn't even have a moment to spare to daydream about the rainbow of half square triangle blocks sitting in the sewing room. I didn't even think about them till I started laying them out that night and first try... this is what I came up with. And I liked it.

Now it's just a matter of stitching them all together, piecing them into the back, making a label{?!}, sandwich, quilt, and bind. Ummm yeah, that's all!

Happy sewing!