Cheerful checkerboard

 Hi everyone, and a happy Friday to you. It is currently raining here, but that's a good thing, because it's bringing in cooler temperatures. Plus it's good for all the flowers I planted this week, so. . .hurray for the rain? After all the wet we've had so far this year, it feels weird to say that!

 

I'm finishing up a paper and getting ready for a conference, plus my niece is coming to visit this weekend, so I haven't done a lot of sewing. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. My little bits did add up to something cute, though, and it has a story, too. Here she is:

 

 

Hey, it's small, but it's cute! I actually think it looks quite cheerful, and who couldn't use a little cheering right now? This is a simple checkerboard made with bright green squares and blocks made of selvages. I can take credit for assembling this cutie, but the selvage blocks were made by Cathy at Crazy by Design.

As sometimes happens when a project doesn't turn out, Cathy offered the blocks above for adoption some time ago. I took them and planned to separate them into 4-patches and make a bigger quilt. You know what happened, right? Yeah, I never made the planned quilt. Preeti found the blocks in my sewing room when she was over and put them up on the design wall. This pretty much forced me to do something with them, you know?

I ended up taking the blocks completely apart, and then looked for a fabric to tie them all together. The selvages are a lot of different colors, but I think the green kind of unites them. And it certainly looks cheerful, doesn't it? The quilting is just a simple crosshatch through all the blocks, done with the walking foot. You can't see it really well in the pictures, but the quilting does go through the selvage blocks, too.

I didn't make the selvage blocks, but I do like them. I've never saved selvages, but I get the appeal. They are colorful and have a lot of fun designs, and when you stitch them together like this, you get fun stripes. I didn't have any more of the green for the backing, but I did find this piece of Daysail from Bonnie and Camille. It's a cheery color, too, and it was perfect for this quilt. The binding is a turquoise piece that was just big enough. I think they all work!

 

 

This little quilt ended up at just about 40 by 52, and it will be a donation quilt. I think there's some kind of program for that finishing up pretty soon, so I'd better get on it! Thanks so much to Cathy for sending the selvage blocks off to me. They were fun, and I think they turned out okay!

Hope everyone has a fun, relaxing weekend! It's summer now, so it's totally acceptable to sit around with your feet up and a nice cool drink. What's in the drink is up to you!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, and the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique.