elizabeth_mn

Finished the Amy Butler quilt top today! It's the hottest day of the summer so far, about 90 F, and all that ironing nearly finished me off. But I persevered and here it is!



The sewing was simple; the most challenging part was arranging the blocks in a pleasing, "random" looking manner. I had colors and values to balance, both border and block, and I also tried very hard to avoid putting the repeat prints next to each other. You'll notice that there are 2 blocks from many of the prints, plus the same prints in different colorways.

I spread all the blocks on the floor and fiddled with them for a couple hours. I took photos and studied the photo because it's so much easier to see the whole composition that way. I would walk away from it for ten minutes and then come back and look again. I'd move a block here and there, and every time (of course) it would mess up something else.



Eventually I decided this was the best I could do. I am trying not to look too hard at it now, because I don't want to suddenly see something I could have changed. This part is done!

I am folding this up and setting it aside now. I will quilt it later, maybe in the autumn. Time to move on to the next thing!

I've been itching to start a new quilt. I've been drawn to simple, modern styles lately and wanted to do something like this one from Oh Fransson! or this cute squares quilt. I like the simple squares and the use of white with brights.

A while ago I got a precut bundle of 10" squares from Amy Butler and I already had a bunch of her Gypsy Caravan collection in the stash, so I thought I would do an all-Amy Butler quilt.

About Amy Butler. Coworkers and I have an immediate eyeroll about Amy Butler now. She has such a weird cult following. For awhile Etsy even had an "Amy Butler" category, though they featured no other specific designers. And her fans tend to be strangely single-minded. People will walk into the store, ask for Amy Butler fabric, look and what we've got from her, and leave without seeing anything else. Even when we kindly offer to show them fabrics from other great designers - Joel Dewberry, Anna Maria Horner, Heather Ross, Alexander Henry, Tula Pink - they politely decline. It is Amy or nothing.

This is so weird. I like her designs a lot, too! But there are so many exciting fabric designers out there doing cool stuff. I just can't understand being more attached to a name than what it actually looks like.

Anyway, onto the quilt! The squares were just shy of 10" (faulty labeling!) so I cut my Gypsy Caravan pieces to 9 7/8" squares, and I am setting each square into a 2 1/4" border of solid cotton coordinate. Then all the blocks will be set into white sashing. There are 36 blocks, set 6x6 to finish at about 96"x96". I will probably machine-quilt it myself.



The damask and florals are just classic Amy. I love these!