Swoon in progress

Yes, there is a swoon in progress.  In fact, over the weekend I made a new block featuring Woodcut in Sass Blue (here and here) and some print from Delilah (I think) on Kona Snow.

new Swoon Block

When I led the September quilt for do. Good Stitches, I settled on doing a group Swoon quilt.  Everyone loves the pattern, and I feel like it is just the right balance of traditional and modern that will bless the family we're making it for.  Well, there's one kind of big factor that I didn't consider...  

In the do. Good Stitches bee we all work from our own fabric stashes.  This is just a practical choice, to eliminate the need to ship fabric, anticipate how much your bee mates will need and allow us to use what we already have.  The Swoon block puts so much emphasis on fabric choice.  That much is obvious.  And I'm sure that's one reason why so many of us enjoy this block.  But, well, that makes it pretty hard to coordinate a quilt long distance.  I felt like this block had everyone pretty nervous about if they'd chosen the right fabrics.  Oops!

By last weekend I had received all 10 of the blocks, plus a little something special that is going on the back of this quilt.  Since the Swoon only needs 9 blocks on the front, 1 block was already destined for the back.  As it turned out, two of the blocks had a similar shade of blue that didn't fit well with the other 8 blocks. So, I decided to put both of those matching blue blocks on the back and make a new block for the front that would bring unity to the shades of blue, gray and red represented.

real life happens here

When piecing the front, I almost convinced myself to skip the 2" white sashing. I'm glad I decided to put it in, because I can see now how spreading the star blocks just slightly like that really does improve the look.

Swoon with do. Good Stitches

Here it is! Do you think it works? I do! My bee mates in the Faith circle contributed some beautiful fabrics and did some very careful piecing. I was able to piece the front without even needing to square up the blocks. Score!

Just waiting on batting now!