a friday finish and some friendship blocks

Hi there! While many are catching up on sleep or tearing down their holiday decor, we're headed up to my gram's house for more Christmas festivities. I'm without a hand project for the car ride so I thought I'd blog instead.

First up, a finished quilt that was gifted to my in-laws for Christmas. Since I came into their lives nearly two years ago they've rarely seen me without fabric between my fingers. It's a common topic for teasing, I often hear things like "we always see you sewing, but where are all the quilts?" So last July I whipped up this quilt top according to Jeni Baker's Modern Plus tutorial, found at incolororder.com. I cut all the squares and determined a layout at home and then packed it up along with the featherweight and pieced it on the patio table with my husband's family all right there, none the wiser. 

It sat folded in a corner until a week ago when I decided it was crunch time! I pieced the back using the four yards of diagonal plaid from Michael Miller (bought on sale specifically for this purpose) and a little stripe of texty Sweetwater for a bit of flair. 

I free motion quilted it with a squiggly design on my mom's 1981 Riccar. The binding is a Denyse Schmidt print from one of her earlier DS Quilts lines at Joann's. I glue basted the binding, if you haven't tried it I highly recommend doing so! Sharon Schambers has a great YouTube video on it.

It was fun watching them open it up, I could tell they really love it! I even caught my MIL snapping photos of it in different positions on the couch. The best thing is I'll get to see it often as we visit my in-laws at least once a month. Yay! 

Ok now for my latest friendship x and plus swap blocks! Elizabeth and I are having so much fun with these and may even up our monthly goal of eight to something like ten or twelve! 

The scrappy look is really working for us so far! I'm really excited to eventually have a big quilt with such little pieces in it. And such a variety of fabrics. Love! 

Anyone can join in on the fun, just find a buddy, start swapping x and plus blocks, add photos to the flicker group and Instagram hashtag #friendshipxandplusswap and blog about your progress on the last Friday of every month!

Ok, about to lose cell signal, we're almost to gram's house out in the Iowan boonies! Hoping you all had a lovely Christmas and a wonderful weekend to follow.