In February, I won a layer cake of “Central Park” by Kate Spain for Moda from the Love Nest Quilt Contest. As soon as I started flipping through the fabrics, the “Cobblestone” print caught my eye and brought baskets to mind. Although I know it is supposed to be cobblestones, it reminds me of basket weave and seemed just right for traditional basket blocks. I wanted to try to design the quilt around just the layer cake but did end up purchasing one yard of the “Cobblestone” print in Stone to use for additional baskets and for the binding.

I also purchased some Central Park “Seneca Daisy” for the backing. The backing is partially pieced with 1 1/5″ squares of layer cake scraps. When I mentioned this in an earlier post, a number of people thought that I cut each 2″ square and pieced them. I did not. I used quick piecing methods and sewed strips of several scraps and then cut them in 2″ rows and pieced a couple of rows together to get the 12 block rows. It saved a lot of time!

I wasn’t sure how many basket blocks I would get out of the layer cake so I just dug in. I stopped when I had used up all of the “Cobblestone” squares and decided to arrange the blocks in this manner, alternating with simple pinwheel blocks made using leftover HSTs. I have to say that the pinwheels really make me happy. They just ended up working out so well! I love the little bits of them along the edge and in the corners.

My quilting was inspired by Oh, Fransson!. My loopy flowers are not nearly as precise or well spaced but I tried! The centers of the flowers are generally spaced well but my flowers varied a bit in size. I think that the only way to master free motion quilting though is to try it, and I will continue to do so!

My finished quilt, after washing and crinkling, measures 60″ wide and 81″ high.

We took these pictures this afternoon at a local state park. It proved to be a great setting and the kids had fun running around.