Ice Cream Soda Quilt {Month 3}

Another month, another lot of Ice Cream Soda quilt blossoms! I'm still surprised that I'm 'keeping up' with this block of the month (created by Jodi at Tales of Cloth) - although I'm not making a conscious effort to get all my blossoms made before the next lot of papers arrive, it has worked out that way so far. Having said that, I've doubled my order for month four (I have a grand plan I'll talk about later in this post), and I'm pretty certain I won't get 16 done this month with everything else I have going on.... but we will see! This is how my blocks are looking at the moment (minus one - I need to get a good group photo!) Not totally balanced colour-wise, but I have lots of time to work on that little problem. 

I've been using Aurifil 80wt for pretty much all of my piecing for these blossoms. I think I've mentioned it before, but it is SUCH a revelation for hand piecing. I'm finding if I use an arm-length strand (not longer), it's stitching beautifully without breaking (even though I do put a fair bit of tension on my stitches). And the stitches are virtually invisible. I purchased the Essential Aurifil Applique set from Fat Quarter Shop earlier this year, and I'm finding this set of neutrals are meeting all my needs, even though I'm using a huge variety of colours and values in this quilt.

I'm continuing with the fussy cut animal theme, although I am starting to make a few blocks that are just fussy cut (without the animal cute factor). I'm not sure about this one yet - but in among all the others, it works so I'm pretty sure it will make it into the final quilt.

These two blocks were a bit of an experiement - I used the same Tula Pink print for the middle round, and varied the outer and inner prints. I'm amazed how different they look - and it's made me realise I'll easily be able to repeat fabrics in this quilt without it looking like I have.

I've been having a lot of fun using this radiating stripe print from Heather Bailey's True Colours collection. I love the movement it gives, and how different it looks depending on where it's placed in the blossoms.

This month, I'm going to make a set of low contrast/low volume blossoms with the idea that my quilt might 'fade out' around the edges. We will see how it goes with my month 4 update in a few weeks ;o).


xx Jess