Novelty, Novelty, Novelty

"There are three things which the public will always clamor for, sooner or later: namely, novelty, novelty, novelty."  This is a quote from Thomas Hood (1799-1845), an English poet  whose works include "The Song of the Shirt", which immortalizes poor women of the 19th Century struggling to make a living sewing clothes by hand.   (You can find the entire poem here.)
I think what Mr. Hood meant by novelty was newness.  I can certainly agree with him when it comes to quilts.  Is there anything like starting a brand new quilt?

Finishing is pretty exciting, too.  My "finish" this week is a top for charity.  The wonderful long arm quilters in our guild will quilt it so it can go to a child.

 I used a pattern from Quiltmaker magazine to make this top.  The quilt has the uninspiring title of Block by Block, and is from the Sept./Oct. 2015 issue.  It finishes at 54 in. x 71 in.  The designer is Heidi Pridemore.  For more details, click here.
From the web page, you can order a kit for the quilt, but apparently you can not order the pattern, even though there is a link.  I got the usual 404 page not found error message.

Here's what the pattern page looks like.  The quilt is bright and cute, and uses lots of novelty prints.  Novelty prints are defined as "fabrics printed with a theme motif".  The print has little pictures of something identifiable (but not flowers--those are floral prints).

Before I started, I made myself a kit.  The directions are for strip piecing, but I prefer to just cut the squares and rectangles and sew them together.  Hey, I like sewing!  And I don't like wasting even small amounts of fabric at the ends of strip pieced sections (call me a fabric miser).  Plus my strips tend to wiggle a bit.  I had to do a little math to cut things my way, which is why I wrote all over the magazine page.
I changed some of the colors to suit the fabric on hand.  I didn't have enough of the green for the long strips between the rows, so I substituted a yellow print and used the green in the rows.

I chose novelty prints from my "collection" for the squares.  I am starting to really have a thing for novelty prints.  I absolutely love this one--Monster Trucks with real monsters!

More trucks, this time  with a construction theme.

Check out the tools!

And even more monsters!  I kind of have a thing for monsters, too.  Must be from all the Sesame Street I watched when my kids were little.

It's funny how things happen.  Just at the time I was playing with novelty prints and thinking about them, I ended up with this little quilt to bind.

Some nice person in my guild made it as a charity quilt.  Our long arm-ers quilted it, and I volunteered to bind it.  It's sort of an I Spy quilt.  What a fun collection of novelty prints!

Everything from cats and frogs to Batman!

Sports prints, the Cat in the Hat, hilarious bats, and even Pegasus.

And don't forget dinosaurs.  I have always loved dinosaur prints. 
This quilt will be so much fun for a child.

 I've been using novelty prints in most of my children's quilts over the years, but I've never made an I Spy quilt.  What if I cut a rectangle from each of the novelty prints in my stash?

I almost can't believe how many I have.  And how great they are!  Star Wars! Sharks!

Dragons, fish, dogs!

Pirates, space, Batman!
This is going to be fun.

Novelty, novelty, novelty.  Let the clamor begin.

I hope you have what you clamor for this week.