Electric Joy with Tutorial

Good morning!  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Isn't this a wild little quilt?  I'm calling it Electric Joy, because it's just exploding out in color.

I never would have made something like this years ago.  (Red binding on a purple border???)  I'm more of a classic quilts, reproduction fabrics quilter.  But I make bright baby quilts for donation, and I have lots of scraps.  I can't let them go to waste, can I?

Below is a tutorial, if you'd like to know how to make this quilt.

I use a lot of 2.5 in. strips in the kid quilts, and I seem to always have these little ends of strips.  If there is at least 2.5 in. left on a strip, I cut a square and put it in a box.  These are all pieces that are less than 2 in. wide, but about 2.5 in. long.

To make the main squares in this block, I sewed them into strips about 7 in. long.  I kept this handy ruler at the machine, and did multiple strips at a time.

Next step was pressing the strips, and trimming them to 2 in. wide by 6.5 in. long.

Like this!  It was sad to see some of my favorite fabrics trimmed almost to nothing at the ends.  I finally learned to put the best ones in the middle.

Next I added a bright triangle to each side of the strip.  I cut the triangles with the Easy Angle from 4.5 in. strips.  You could use charm squares, and just cut them in half.

I know this looks wrong, but don't worry.  This gets trimmed up to be a 4.5 in. square.

I trimmed first one side and then the other.  Each time, I placed the corner of the ruler as close to the center of the pieced strip as possible.

Second side being trimmed.

Voila.   Each block needs 4 of these squares.  You also need 4 shorter strips that go between the blocks.  These should measure 2 in. x 4.5 in. after trimming.  The center is a bright 2 in. square.

The blocks measure 10.5 in. finished.

Here's the back so you can see how I pressed it.

For the set, I used a solid yellow interspersed with 2 in. squares.  The yellow pieces were cut 2 in. x 4.5 in.  The squares were random bright colors.  In this photo I'm still missing a few yellow strips.

Here's a closeup of the finished quilt.  I quilted in the ditch, and quilted diagonal lines in all the squares.

Here's the back, a print of big strawberries.   Mmm, I can't wait for strawberry season!

I have to admit, the quilting on this is Not Great.  In fact, this quilt has more nips and tucks than an aging movie star.  I think the piecing was okay, especially since it was trimmed carefully.  It could have been my not-so-stellar basting.  Or the wiggly purple border fabric.  Or gremlins.

Either way, it's finished, and I like it.  This one isn't for donation, it's for us.
Somehow, there are still lots of scraps left in that basket.
Have a wonderful quilty week!

I'm linking up with Myra at Busy Hands Quilts and Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts this week.