Fantasia (Art Gallery Fabrics) by Sara Lawson @ Sew Sweetness

Last week I got this great package in the mail from my friend, Sara Lawson at Sew Sweetness.  Inside was a collection of fat quarters from her new fabric line with Art Gallery Fabrics called "Fantasia". I absolutely love the colors in this line and kept them stacked up on my sewing table for inspiration while I decided just what to make with them.

Even though this is a fabric line, designed to coordinate, I decided that I'd like to step a bit outside of my comfort zone and create something scrappy.  I don't do scrappy very well...and even when I attempt to be scrappy, I have to be somewhat organized in my scrapiness.  I mean....what if you're being all scraptastic and you end up with two of the same fabrics side by side in your quilt?   What then?

Well, as seems to be the norm for me, whether processing how I should quilt something...or deciding on a design....for some reason my inspirations arrive at approximately 3am. Just like clockwork...  I'll wake up with an idea, cutting or stitching in my mind until I think I have it figured out.  Often I'll reach over to look at my phone for the time although I'm not sure why....and it's always in the three o'clock hour.  Always.  Weird, huh?  When does your inspiration come?

The other night....or should I say early in the morning...right on schedule came the idea for what I wanted to do with Sara's fabrics.  I woke up thinking about a block that I had pinned on Pinterest a long time ago that I thought would work so great for a scrappy quilt.  I was imaging her fabrics in this scrappy block.  (one look at my phone showed the time as 3:07am)  I fell back to sleep thinking about what color I might use for the background.

small squares are 2.5"
larger squares are 4.5" with 2.5" square sewn diagonally on opposing sides 

Yesterday I pulled out my stash of solids to see what I might already  have to use for the background.  I auditioned four different solid colors.   Cream (some of the Fantasia line have a cream background), Navy...hmmm...didn't really trip my trigger....and White (expected).  Then I found this teal or jade shade of green and I thought it would be awesome.

Cream

Navy

White


 

Teal/Jade

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the cutting table.  As I was preparing the fat quarters to cut into 2.5" strips, I noticed this other stack of solids that I plan to use on another project....and there was this shade of Butter Yellow that just spoke to me "Psssst, I think I would look better than the green"....and well....when fabric talks to you...you just have to listen.

That print you can see on the top of the stack has the sweetest unicorn that I just could not cut up into a 2.5" strip...so I decided to fussy cut those into 4.5" squares and was able to get five of them.  Look how cute these blocks turned out!

I alternated the fussy cut unicorn blocks with the scrappy block, three blocks across and three down.

Clearly Mr Bone Jangles approves.

Love!

 I absolutely love how this quilt turned out....but as I stitched it together I realized that I had sewn two of the very same pink fabrics side by side! TWO PINKS! SIDE.BY.SIDE, PEOPLE!  For about five minutes, I told myself I would just have to live with it....but I know from experience....that come three o'clock in the morning...I'd be awake imagining just how I would remove one of the squares to replace it with another color....so I went ahead and just did it.  Now, I am contemplating adding a yellow border...followed by a scrappy border of leftover 2.5" squares.  Unless of course, I'm awake at 3am with some other inspiration.

So funny as I was sewing this quilt, I was listening to an Irish radio station and what did they play but The Unicorn Song by the Irish Rovers.  I grew up listening to them as my Mom was a big fan!  I was always so sad about the unicorns missing the Ark.   I'm attaching the link so you can have a listen too!

                                                   Irish Rovers - Unicorn Son

My beautiful friend, Sara - Sew Sweetness
Love her!