Monochrome quilt

Isn't it funny how sometimes the things that seem the simplest take the longest to actually do! This quilt was one such project.  I had it in my head that I wanted to make a black and white quilt for some friend's new baby boy.  I knew they would like a monochrome quilt and I knew the new baby's older brother loves pandas so that was my starting criteria.

When I saw this Sevenberry Panda & bear fabric from Sew Scrumptious I knew this was my starting point. I paired it with some circle time fabric from M is for Make.  I already had some of this but of course had to buy more to make this quilt! The black is a Moda cotton and I think the yellow is a Kona cotton, curry probably.  The backing, which I didn't get a photo of, is a lovely soft organic brushed cotton flannel from Ray Stitch.

I really enjoyed making my last half square triangle quilt so I decided to make another.  These are 9" half square triangles (for my previous quilt I used the tutorial from Suzy Quilts as a reminder on making HST). I did think this would be a relatively quick quilt to make but it just took me so long to work out the pattern placement.   Even then after I'd made all the half square triangles I laid it all out and decided there was too much black so had to unpick a few half square triangles and piece together some of the white circle time fabric in order to have enough.  In the end though I am really happy with how this turned out, I think the balance between the dark and light coloured fabrics works well and the yellow binding gives it a nice touch of colour - I don't think I could do a quilt completely in black and white!

The good thing about making smaller quilts is having a little helper to hold them while I take photos. He seems to quite enjoy it too!

I was quite conscious that for this quilt I bought a lot of new fabric, in fact since I started quilting I've bought a lot of new fabric.  I do try and use sheets or duvet covers from the charity shop for quilt backings whenever I can but I am now also going to try and stick to using the fabrics I have and only buying from charity shops for new fabric as much as possible. I've been tidying up my fabric and can't quite believe how much I have accumulated - both for quilting and garment sewing - so it's time to use what I have. 

Next up I have my Starry Skies quilt top basted, pinned and ready to quilt and I'm also hoping to get back to an improvised piecing quilt I've been working on for ages.  What projects have you been working on?