Diamond Ripples

 

It's finally done! 

The Modern Blocks Bee was the first online quilting bee that I ever joined. It was based on the book Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers, with each member of our bee choosing a block from the book for everyone else to make and send back to them. I chose Lara Finlayson's block Diamond Ripples way back in November 2012. I sent each member a pack of blue, green, and yellow scraps along with Kona Snow and hoped for the best. I honestly hadn't thought too much about the block, I just needed something that was easy and had simple cutting instructions! We were in the process of moving at the time, along with working on our harvest, all of course with four small kids so simple was key!

 

Boy, am I glad I chose this block! It really does make an interesting design when multiple blocks are put together. As my friend and bee-mate Deb said in a Flickr comment, "I really underestimated this block!" and I couldn't agree more! I was quite indecisive about the quilting, but ended up choosing to quilt 1/4" apart in the white spaces and left the colorful parts unquilted. 

 

For the backing I just used a few blue prints from my stash. I thought that having a colorful binding on the quilt would be a little distracting so instead I made my first faced binding using this tutorial from Victoria of SillyBooDilly. It was really easy, but since you have to hand-stitch the facing to the quilt it took me nearly a week to finish it. There is a good reason I machine stitch my bindings! Now the quilt is hanging upstairs adding a little color to the kids' playroom.