Tasting Table Tuesday - new projects, same shirts

Hope everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day Weekend.  We just got back from visiting family in Western PA.  It was a great weekend, but now I've got a couple of days to get some work done before we head out for another weekend trip.  Busy time of year for traveling, that's for sure!

Late last week I started working on two quilts, simultaneously.  That's a first for me, but since they're both made with mostly the same fabrics, I thought it might be more efficient that way.  I'm using more of my oxford shirt collection for both of these quilts.

The first one is a special gift for a friend of mine, so I can't share too many details right now, but the I'm using a pattern I designed myself, called "Cube Mates" for this one. It's the second quilt I've made from this pattern, only I'm using a different fabric for the rectangles - a Moda fabric from an old line called "Simplicity" that I've had in my stash for a while now.  It is printed with inspirational words like "home, love, celebrate, harmony", etc. and it seems like a perfect match for the "simple" squares of oxford shirts.

The next one is another custom baby quilt, and my client requested the same shirt fabrics, because she loves the soft "beachy" look, but she wanted to just give it a little more of a feminine look, so I'm adding this batik that has a soft lavender background with tiny little flowers sprinkled all over that pick up all the colors in the shirt fabrics.  I think it adds just the right amount of femininity without being too girly.

The pattern is made up of large rectangles of shirt fabrics, and small rectangles of the batik.  I got the idea from this quilt by Red Pepper Quilts and Rita was nice enough to post some basic instructions on her blog.  I've reduced the size of my quilt though - this one will be about 48" x 60" - a little bigger than your typical baby quilt, but just the size that my client prefers.  I think the small floral rectangles will look like little tufts of wildflowers growing between the bricks, like the colors you'd find in wildflowers on the sand dunes at the beach.

I've got all my blocks finished for both quilts.  Now I just have to start putting them all together.  I'm very excited to see how both quilts turn out.  And I've still got even MORE of these shirt fabrics left!  Although I've put a pretty good dent in them this time...