Stroller Rink Quilts

Strip Set--100% from my stash!

I came home Thanksgiving eve, giddy about my 2 days off from work and determined to start a new quilt...but not just one quilt...two for friends having their first baby in January (both boys!)  I started looking through a few books for inspiration and a plan.  I selected Roller Rink out of  Elizabeth Hartman's new book "Modern Patchwork" and starting cutting up bright cheery strips all from my stash!  Unfortunately I didn't have enough of the charcoal linen fabric for both quilts (I wasn't even sure it was enough for one baby quilt...yet I lucked out...phew!).  I was able to substitute some solid kona grey for the second quilt.  By the end of the evening, I had pressed all the fabrics and had all the strips cut and ready to go for some serious chain piecing.


Thanksgiving morning, I woke up early and couldn't get to the studio fast enough to start sewing these quilts.  It was pedal to the metal, as I started assembling the strip sets, which went surprisingly fast!  In fact, I had all the strip sets sewn, cut and all the white framed blocks completed by the end of Thanksgiving Day.  Friday, I completed the second set of blocks and started to assemble the quilt tops.  Sunday, I found 2 large pieces of fabric in my stash that were just barely big enough for my backing and went to work layering and pinning in preparation for the quilting stage...which is where I took a bit of a break as my vacation was over...

Fun striped binding

Last Saturday, I came home absolutely exhausted from work.  I left the office thinking I would need a stiff drink once I got home... but instead found great stress relief by quilting both quilt tops in one night!  Although in fairness, it was mostly edge to edge quilting that followed the lines of the quilts, so once again it was pedal to the metal!

Once the binding was complete---I needed a quilt name so I could prep the labels.  I thought it would be fun to play off the original quilt title "Roller Rink" and since these were baby quilt sized...I changed it to "Stroller Rink."  I also wanted a fun location photograph the finished quilts.  We've been having some rainy, dreary days and I really wanted a bright cheery background.  I thought it might be fun to head to a local playground and the first pass by it was full of kids.  So we ran our errands and stopped by once more to find an empty park to drape the quilts along the playground for a fun photo shoot!

Double Stroller Rink Quilts

Baby Grant Quilt

Baby McElwain Quilt