Black & White Doesn't Have to be Boring!!

Yesterday I mentioned that I have been in a black and white phase, so I'm posting a couple of pictures. The picture to the right is a variation of the crazy 8 pattern. I love the "controlled scrappy" look that the quilt has. I have always admired scrappy quilts, but I guess that I am too much of a control freak (I know, I'm just a freak!), but I always worry that fabrics next to each other won't "work." Over the past year or so, I've made a number of "controlled scrappy" quilts and I have been working on a couple that are a little less controlled. Sometimes it is difficult, but when I find myself trying to match fabrics I put it aside and work on something else. Not only don't I get frustrated, I also don't get bored!

The quilt to the left is one that I call 4 Patch Deception. It looks like there is sashing around the 4 Patch but actually, the sashing is sewn into the block. It is actually a variation 9 Patch, not a 4 Patch. I love the bright yellow in this! I also like the toes peeking out of the bottom of the quilt.

As you can tell from the photo below, it is really hard to find good help these days. I doubt that they thought I would keep the picture, but of course I did and I can't wait to tell them that I posted it here!

The quilt below is one that I did as a test pattern for someone from stashbusters. This is the small version, minus the final border which is solid black. I have finished this top, but need to quilt it. I will post a picture of the finished piece soon. I started the large version of this, but I haven't gotten much further than the first red and black border. I have everything ready to finish it, but just haven't gotten around to it. That one should finish about 100"x 100". Like the touch of yellow in the 4 Patch Deception quilt, I like the red in here. I could easily see these quilts all together layered on a bed.

Actually any of these quilts would work for our guild challenge quilt, although this last one was started before the challenge was issued. For the challenge, we had to take a fat quarter bundle or fabric from our stash and create a quilt no smaller than 24" x 36". We could add one background fabric and if our quilt has multiple borders, at least one of the fabrics in one of the borders had to have been used in the body of the quilt somewhere. All three of these quilts fit the challenge requirements, as the fabric all came from my stash. I started to collect black and white fabrics after I made a photo quilt for someone who wanted only black and white fabrics. I really liked that project and that was what got me going on these quilts. I still have quite a bit of fabric, so I know I'll make more. Maybe I'll add purple to the next one!