I started working on another UFO last week, in pursuit of my goal to retire 12 UFOs this year. It’s a top I pieced from Denyse Schmidt’s first line of fabrics called Flea Market Fancy for FreeSpirit. It can hardly even be called a quilt design: it’s just squares set with sashes and corner posts. Here is the recipe:

You need big squares cut 9.5″ x 9.5″

You need small squares cut 3.5″ x 3.5″

You need rectangles cut 3.5″ x 9.5″

Join them as shown below.

I created a “fake” border by making all the perimeter patches dark. I like this effect a lot and will do it again sometime.

I only auditioned one border fabric, because it was so funky and unpredictable that I just had to use it.  It’s a FreeSpirit from about five years ago, designed for a line by Terrie Hancock Mangat called Fiesta. The print is called Pie Party. Isn’t that fun?

The people in the border are just wonderful!

So are the dogs!

I didn’t want to lose the craziness of the scene, so I cut the borders 11″ wide. I like this! Even though I had several yards of the fabric (off a clearance table), I had to piece the top and bottom border strips; I also needed to add corner posts.

In some ways I think this is hideous. But I also love it because it is so weird. Have you made a hideous/funky quilt? We’d love to see it.

Now to think up some off-the-wall quilting designs and calm down the edges with a simple binding fabric. I’ll keep you posted.

Celebrate our new site with two free patterns: Zoo-for-Two and Lavender Fields. Both use fun, large-scale fabric for quick and easy quilts.

Zoo-for-Two is made from Urban Flannel by Valori Wells for FreeSpirit Fabrics. The QM staff knew how fun that fabric would be when we first saw it. The best thing about Zoo-for-Two is how you end up with 2 quilts from one pattern. Hope you like how we used your fabric Valori!

Lavender Fields started as the color option after I saw Willow by McKenna Ryan for Hoffman California Fabrics. But I wanted to make a throw so I changed the patch size and it needed two borders, so this one became its own pattern

Happy quilting!