Trying To Be Cool

I finished this quilt in mid-August, so I don't know why I haven't posted about it until now! My husband's birthday was August 19th and we took four days off of work to go on a road trip up to Niagara Falls. On our way out, we stopped in Philadelphia and had our pictures taken by Autumn Kern. I found Autumn on Instagram and loved her style of photography. I thought it would be fun to commemorate his birthday and our almost-two-year anniversary with some pictures. 

As I started to brainstorm the setting for our photos, I knew I wanted to include a quilt somehow. This quilt began to formulate in my mind after I bought a fat quarter bundle of Kim Andersson’s Tidal Lace collection for Windham Fabrics. 

How's that for some inspiration??

I pulled some other complimentary fabrics out of my stash and started searching for a pattern. I wanted something with big blocks, both to accentuate the fabric and to speed up the assembly process (I was working with a deadline after all). I finally settled on the Stacked Squares pattern from Moda and used My Quilt Infatuation's cutting calculations so I could use fat quarters instead of a layer cake and jelly rolls.

I call this quilt "Trying To Be Cool" because I felt like this color pallette was really mellow and bohemian and as I was picking out fabrics, I was sort of thinking, "Would a really cool and hip person like this?" If the answer was yes, it went into the quilt. Don't ask me to explain the logic behind that one. Haha. :)

Here is the final product!

I pieced together some gray and blue-green fabrics for the backing. 

Overall, I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out! It has become a regular "couch quilt" in our house already and when it gets really cold this winter, the colors will remind me of summer. :)

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Watkins Glen State Park in New York state was BEAUTIFUL!! I liked it even better than Niagara Falls because you could walk around and through the waterfalls. They even had a great quilt shop in town called O'Susannah's Quilts and Gifts. I can't wait to go back!