Little Baskets - Embrace the Rainbow

If I had to guess, Little Baskets was started 4-5 years ago. 100 block sets were cut with a die cutter from pastels and some white. It was worked on at home and at a retreat, and then the reality of what to do with 100 4.5" blocks left me stymied.

It has been sitting in a box with only a note that 40 blocks were finished. When trying to decide on a pattern for a friend's upcoming grandchild, I took another look at the pieces. All of the basket handles of the 100 blocks were finished. A piece of white polka-dot fabric with multiple colored dots was in the box. After conferring with several friends with grandchildren and/or baby quilt making experience, I decided to set the blocks with an alternate square of the polka-dot fabric, making a larger quilt. A backing fabric from stash was pulled--checkers with almost matching colored squares to the polka-dot fabric (a completely different fabric line.)

Little Baskets, 67.5" x 58" Quilted with Snapdragons

I did end up making several more baskets of red fabrics, as there weren't any but the background dots and backing fabric both had some soft red. Overall I'm happy with the colors, though if I were to make the quilt today it would look much different.

Backing and corner close-up

A rainbow color layout made sense, rather than scrambling all the colors. It's my first rainbow layout, and I can see doing it again, perhaps with more planning next time.

This project also taught me to keep better notes when sewing a fussy design. The little handles are sewn down by machine on one side, and the template was still with the pattern, but to get a nice smooth curve, the bottom end of the bias strip just barely goes over the seam line. It's now on a note with the die cutter.