Brown Eyed Quilter Lakeview Quilt

When Emily the Brown Eyed Quilter needed testers for her quilt pattern - the Lakeview Quilt and mentioned scrappy and jellyroll roll friendly - well, I had to sign up! I have one of those big plastic storage containers full of jellyrolls and have been looking for a great quilt pattern to use some of them up. 

When I pulled out my box I found that I had several strips of black and white prints. There were several different patterns and I had varying amounts of each print.

I then looked at my shorter cuts of solids looking to see what I thought would look good with black & white prints. Immediately a few bright almost neon solids jumped out at me. I cut them into the required strip width out of what fabric I had. Had the largest scrap of the green and orange colors and smallest pieces of the turquoise and pink.

When it was time to start sewing my black & white strips together I laid them all out on my table in value order. I put the prints with the most white on the left and the prints with the most black on the right. The center had prints that were close to 50/50. 

I had the most of a white print with a black paint splash like pattern. So much of it that almost every set of three strips used one in it.

As I sewed my sets of three strips I grabbed a strip from the light section. middle section, and the dark section. This way I would have a graduation from lighter to darker in my blocks for a more cohesive pattern.

This method worked well for the fabrics I had since they were all the same color scheme. If I had done colorful strips for my scrappy quilt, then I would likely have gone with a more random pattern. The most difficult part was trying to create a randomness to my neon colors when piecing the top. The use of a design wall was super helpful in doing this part. It also helps to think out the math of it too.

 I knew I had 9 blue and 9 pink blocks. There are 8 rows so I knew 7 rows would have 1 blue and 1 pink and there would need to be one row with 2 blue and 2 pink (but not the same row). I also knew I had slightly more green than orange blocks. I love Sudoku games and use a similar mindset when arranging my blocks. I try to make sure I have the same number of items in each column and row and that like ones don't touch.

I tried hard not to create any discernable pattern and I played around with block placement for a day. I left it up on my design wall and moved pieces as I felt they needed it. After a day I felt good about how it looked and started sewing. 

I love that the Lakeview Quilt Pattern included instructions to make this a zero waste pattern. By simply sewing an additional line you create extra "bonus blocks" that you can then use to make something else.  I made the Twin size Lakeview Quilt and the Bonus Blocks would have been more than enough to make a baby sized quilt. 

My first thought was to use the bonus blocks in piecing a back for my quilt. Then my son said he liked the quilt and I figured it would look great on the daybed in his game room. The daybed is one of those that is made to look more like a sofa. It's a faux leather with a solid back and has arms like a sofa. So I thought making two pillow shams to sit across the back of the daybed would probably look really nice and the bonus blocks would be perfect for it.

I want the pillow shams to semi match so I did make a repeating pattern with my bonus blocks.  I love how the bonus blocks coordinate with the quilt, but also contrast with it at the same time. Since I did organize my strips from light to dark, the bonus block are much darker and make the quilt appear much lighter. 

I absolutely love how my quilt top turned out. I am even more thrilled that my 22 year old son actually wanted it for his game room. His game room is a bright blue color similar to the blue in the quilt and I think it is going to look great in there. I'm sending the Quilt and Pillow Shams to Emily to work her magic long arm quilting it. I'll be sure to share photos when it is completed.

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