Irish Chain Challenge Quilt

It's done and I am in love with it!  I know, I love all my quilts, but this one was so simple...especially because of the strip piecing.  Much easier to do that than to piece a bazillion small squares.  Ya know?  

I have always been fascinated by the Irish chain quilts.  They look so very difficult - but they're not!  There are single chains, double chains, triple chains...who knew?

When I joined the Small Quilt Talk group (click on the button in my sidebar to go see what they're all about), the first thing I did was start this Irish Chain Challenge.  Our challenge quilts can be no larger than 30 inches square.  This one is about 19 inches square.  I think a lot of the quilters will be hand quilting their challenge quilts.  I don't know how to hand quilt, and I really have no desire to learn.  That being said, I wanted the quilting to be simple...evocative of simpler times.  So, I machine stitched diagonal lines in both directions, so that they met in the center of the setting squares.  I am very happy with this.

  

ta-da!

It's always fun (and time-consuming) to follow links from one place to another to another.  The other day, I was following links and ended up on Kathleen Tracy's blog and then her website.  

I saw a button on her sidebar - 'SmallQuiltTalk', so I followed that link, read the information on the group...and I joined!  The button is on my sidebar...go ahead and click on it to see what this group is all about.  

I jumped right into the quilt challenge that's running right now...an Irish Chain quilt.  There are specific instructions for size of blocks and overall size of the quilt.  Here's what I put together this morning...

It's about 19" square.  Each block is 3 3/4" square, and each little square you see in those blocks is 3/4".  Yes, that is less than an inch!  WOW!  I so enjoyed making it, though.  Strip pieced it, so it went really fast.  I am not sure how to quilt it...a lot of the women do hand-quilting and I really don't want to do that.  The deadline is July 8, so I have time to figure it out.  I have loved the Irish Chain quilts forever, and was so excited to have a chance to do one...even if on a very small scale.  

That was this morning's sewing.  

This afternoon, I started on the wedding gift for my nephew, Tony.  He is in the Air Force, stationed in Anchorage, Alaska (where my sister, Joyce, lives).  Tony is Jill's son (she lives in Wausau...about 2 hours from here).  Tony is getting married in June, and I had no idea what to do for a wedding gift.  Well, John of Quilt Dad and Julie of Jaybird Quilts recently put some nifty pillows together.  What a great idea for a wedding gift!  So.  I made two pillow tops...they need to be quilted and backings made, yet...but here they are.  They'll finish at 18".

I'm done sewing for a bit.  Want to watch my movie and eat supper.  I've had a roast in the crockpot all day...smells sooo yummy!

Perhaps I'll get more sewing done later tonight.

Hope you're having a good day!