Remember this little guy? One of my favorite quilt blocks from my liberated sampler was the wonky churn dash. In my original post, I linked to a tutorial by Sarah at Sew Joy Creations, so you could make your very own liberated churn dash block.

Sarah has since developed a fantastic quilt pattern using these liberated churn dash blocks! Her pattern is 22 pages, full of color photos and very detailed. And the best part is, Sarah has offered to give away a copy of the pattern to one of you. All you need to do is leave a comment! What fabrics would you use for your Liberated Churn Dash quilt? I will pick a winner Thursday, July 19th in the evening. Good luck everyone!

++ Closing comments to pick a winner! ++

The winner is #61, Jen B! Jen said “I think I would piece together charms from swaps to “make” some fabric. Maybe my neutrals with a turquoise background.”

Congratulations Jen! I will be in contact!

After taking a breather from sewing the last few days, I decided to start on a new toddler quilt using Art Gallery’s latest line of fabrics, Rhapsodia. As usual, these fabrics feel so wonderful and the colors and designs are beautiful.

I have been really thinking about Denyse Schmidt’s Ice Pops pattern lately, which can be found in her book Denyse Schmidt Quilts: 30 Colorful Quilt and Patchwork Projects.

Although there are templates in the book, I decided to just wing it. I cut my pieces with very slight angles to give them a bit of a wonky look (but not too wonky).

I sashed my blocks in a dark putty color and I am super disappointed that I don’t know what the fabric is! I think it might be a Moda Bella Solid because it doesn’t match any of the Kona, FreeSpirit or RJR solids on my color cards. I actually just ordered a Moda Bella Solids Color Card from Fat Quarter Shop so hopefully I will find a match soon. The lighter putty color is FreeSpirit Designer Solid Sand Dune. Love it.

I’m going to do some straight line quilting on this one, maybe start this weekend. Can’t wait to share the finished quilt!

My Liberated Sampler is complete! As I mentioned in my original post, I decided to make a small sampler of “liberated” or “wonky” quilt blocks as an example of a specific type of modern quilting for a presentation I’m giving next week. I think the final quilt came pretty darn close to the Photoshop mockup I created. This wonky churn dash is one of my favorites.

I have received a lot of comments and emails about this quilt in the last week, most asking for a pattern. Well…I don’t have a pattern – at least not at the moment. It is something I am considering, but I just made these blocks up as I went. But I don’t want to leave you all with nothing, so I did some Googling (is that a word?) and have some tutorial links for you.

· Wonky Star Tutorial by Silly BooDilly
· Wonky String Block by Malka Dubrawsky
· Nine Patch using “Map of the States” technique by Oh, Fransson
· Churn Dash by Sew JOY Creations
· Cross Blocks by Lollyquiltz
· Square in Square by Quilt Dad

I decided to quilt my sampler using randomly angled horizontal lines. I think it put a nice finishing touch on the quilt. The binding is scrappy.

If you make your own liberated sampler, I’d love to see it in the Fresh Lemons Quilts group on Flickr.

Since I am still Bernina-less, I have decided to work this weekend on liberated (or wonky) quilt blocks. I’m having trouble getting an accurate 1/4″ seam on my backup machine and I figure the seam size doesn’t have to be perfectly exact with this type of block. The above square is an improvisational string block and will be squared up with white sashing.

I’m speaking next month to the String-A-Long Traditional Quilt Guild in northwest Indiana on modern quilting. I thought it would be fun to bring a mini sampler full of liberated quilt blocks. Below is a mock up of my plans, and hopefully I will have a finished quilt to share next week!