My Cheddary Secret--Doll Quilt Swap

You may recall I was making 3.5 inch churn dash blocks and posting about them for my version of  Cheddar in the Churn/Cheddary Churn Dash and then the little blocks went awol.  That was because I decided to participate in the Kathleen Tracy Yahoo Doll quilt group's doll size quilt swap....it didn't take much thinking to decide that I should make this little quilt for my partner (and one for me too!)!  I hope she likes it--I had to keep it a secret because I didn't want her to catch on that one would be for her so I stopped mentioning this little quilt as I worked on it. 

Yesterday (July 8th) I had a short morning shift at work, so after working out and talking on Skype to Nancy for a bit I got to making these quilts.  I should mention that I first saw the pattern and was inspired by a photo (I have shown before) of Lucy in the Netherland's little quilt.  I then looked online and found a similar but smaller quilt from Sugarland Quilts on American Vintage Quilts page but no pattern.  The best I can figure, the original pattern came from the Temecula Quilt Company's small quilt kits but I could find no place to purchase the pattern! I would have done so happily since I am a pattern follower, but no luck!  

Becky wrote out a pattern for me, but I lost it for a time and so I made the blocks the wrong size, then I tried again with 3.5 inch blocks...I decided that size worked great and then found Becky's pattern (she had snapped a picture of it and resent it to me!) and discovered that Becky had drafted it larger than I went with and she figured strips to do the rows of cheddar.  By this time I had studied the picture and realized I could use setting triangles to make it easier (and somehow it winds up looking like a zig zag!) so for the FIRST TIME EVER I figured out a pattern!!!  Talk about getting out of my box.

It helped that I found Bonnie Hunter's helpful page for Putting it "On Point" and realized that since my blocks were 3 inches unfinished I could use 5.5 inch side triangles all the way down my rows and 3 inch corner triangles at the tops of the two rows where there is cheddar.  Talk about easy peasy, Bonnie has taught me so much!  So here are a few rows...

And a few more rows, I LOVE it already!

Cut off the half blocks (does anyone else have a hard time doing this?  I have saved the other half for some wonky something or other down the road!

I had originally made three blocks of each fabric thinking I would make three of these, but with the deadline looming for mailing out my swap I decided to make two--I needed eight more blocks so after putting the first quilt together I made nine more.  There is one different fabric in the second quilt top, but other than that they are all the same.

Here is number two all trimmed up..

It is funny how after they are sewn I look and realize I could have mixed the blocks up better but overall I am happy with both these Cheddar in the Churn doll size quilts. 

I picked an indigo colored fabric for the backing and decided to wash it in the sink before using it--I wound up with blue fingertips!  Luckily it came out this morning when I washed my hair!

Here they are spray basted and pinned.

 I started out quilting with my featherweight with a blue thread on the back, but you could see the blue on the front.  Picked it out and changed machines to the Husqvarna Viking and used blue on the back again and had to pick out again.  Switched to cheddar on the back and had much better luck.

 I decided to quilt zig zags, looks like Charlie Brown's shirt on the back!

 It is coming along on the front!

 More zigs and zags!

 Trimmed though not squared yet.

I decided on a dark green binding for my partner Barbara's quilt.

 Binding on!

 Label on!  I sure hope she likes it!

 And here is the pair together!  It was a very relaxing day quilting and binding these!