Carolina Lily

When I decided to make quilts for 4 of Fire Monkey's teachers, I had to wait to to start until I knew the favorite colors of the teachers.  With the Covid spike after the holidays, we didn't have any in-person school until the 2nd week of February.  That put me on a tight timeline, so I took any shortcut I could.  Turns out that we had two teachers with a favorite color of purple.  I knew right away that I would make Blueberry Hill for one, since I already had the strips cut and planned to make that pattern. I hadn't settled on the second purple quilt yet, and I was starting to get close enough to the end of the year as to be concerning.

Then I was looking through my scrap box of Island Batik fabrics and I found a set of four abandoned Carolina Lily blocks.  For last year's December medallion challenge, I designed a medallion with Carolina Lily blocks at the center.  Except when I started making the center blocks, I didn't consult my design and chose the fabrics from memory--and got it wrong.  When I realized my mistake, I decided I really liked my original design better, better enough to re-make the blocks.  Since those lilies were purple, they were perfect for my second purple teacher quilt.  I did need to add the stems in, but the mostly-finished blocks did give me a nice head start.

I went to EQ to play around with a layout.  During the Stay at Home Round Robin I realized how much I liked the look of a checkerboard border, so I played around with that.  I decided a nine-patch center would tie the whole quilt together.  I strip-pieced most of the border.  As a purple-lover myself, I'm really happy with how this turned out!

purple back from Backside Fabrics

This was my final teacher quilt and I did get it done in time!  All four have now been gifted and the teachers I've heard from seen really pleased and very surprised.  Finishing all four was my monthly goal with Patty at Elm Street Quilts.

Green Pinwheels

photo by K. Mellnik

Blueberry Hill

Bear Hugs