I own a bridge now. Well Bj and I half own a bridge since we bought our vacation house on the other side of said bridge with our dear friends. It has proven to be a FANTASTIC quilt picture taking place

Not gonna lie though I’ve had some close calls with heavier quilts and the water…

And why is this quilt so heavy? It’s a “quilt as you go” type of quilt. So it has lots of tiny pieces, lots of quilting and lots of batting! I can’t stand to toss scraps of batting so I started making these. I am totally in disbelief that I’ve never blogged about these before since I have made many – and some very large ones at that!

I think showing the back will make it most obvious how this type of quilt is made, in case you’re not familiar with it. For me personally I utilize two sizes of scrap batting squares – ones about 15″ that I trim to 14″ after they are sewn on and a 10ish inch square I trim to 9.5 after sewing. To sew these type of blocks you flip and stitch, it’s very easy and addictive. I simply sew them together, as I would any other block. I do a very heavy steam press and I’ve never found this to be an issue.

Here you see two quilts in progress – would you believe one is monochromatic and the other is this bright crazy quilt? I find it much, MUCH easier to deal with value by flipping the camera app to mono and snapping a few to see if anything glares out to me as a problem. These bigger blocks have about a 6.5″ square in the middle of either dark/light and then the rest of the block is the contrast. It keeps the blocks interesting. I believe I first read about this in a translated Japanese quilting book, but I can’t seem to find it. Just know this original idea wasn’t mine! To finish this since it’s already quilted you have two choices – either stitch in the ditch to anchor the backing fabric or tie it. I’ve done both.

And about that house on the property with the bridge… I love to sew there so much! Often packing up for a few days looks like this as I am always OBSCENELY OPTIMISTIC about how much I will get done.

(Working on this quilt while watching wildlife and the creek – not too shabby!) This quilt ended up being perfect for a friend’s baby. A thick quilt like this makes an excellent play mat!