Sucked In

I'm a sucker for a quilt along.  Plain and simple.  I was really doing well trying to tame the massive amount of unfinished projects that are lurking in the depths of my sewing room, and resisting brand new projects, but I couldn't resist the Tula Pink City Sampler QAL any longer.  Seeing all that rainbow goodness popping up in blog land for the past three weeks was breaking me down bit by bit, until I found myself perusing the 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book last week on Amazon and then magically it was in my cart and I was hitting the purchase button.

My book arrived on Saturday, and I immediately got to stitching.  Honestly, I have no idea why I resisted Tula for so long, has she ever led me astray??  Every project I've ever made either using a Tula Pink pattern or fabric line (like here, and here) ends up being a favorite, and I can already tell this quilt will be no exception.  Over the past two days I've whipped up the first 12 blocks and they are like quilty crack incredibly addictive.  

These are blocks 1-3.  I'm following along with the color palate featured in the book, to hopefully end up with a rainbow Gridlock layout as featured on the cover.  I'm not exclusively using Tula fabrics, but working from my stash and incorporating assorted Tula prints when I can.



As I dug into this project, the little rational voice in the back of my head was saying "this project sounds awfully like another sampler quilt featuring 6.5" blocks that's stashed away in the darkness of abandoned projects...ahem...Farmers Wife QAL" and while yes, that voice is absolutely correct, those Farmers Wife blocks will likely never see the light of day again, this QAL has a completely different vibe...and no templates!  So I say to you nay-sayer voice of reason, I will finish this sampler quilt!



These blocks really do have such a fresh modern vibe, and are so easy to put together.  I seem to spend more time planning the fabrics for each block than I do cutting and sewing.  It's going to be hard to stick to only making 3 a week!



As I'm not using the exact fabrics featured in the book, I was getting a little nervous that my quilt would look like rainbow throw-up instead organized color transitions, so I planned the quilt out in the Touch Draw app for iPad, and plan on dropping in each block as I finish them to get an idea of how the final layout will look, sort of a virtual design wall if you will.



Right now it just looks like a lot of empty white squares, but not only will it let me monitor my color selections, but also will be a motivator to keep making blocks, as I can instantly see how my quilt is going to look when its finished!

Looking forward to my next date with Tula to whip up more blocks!