March 2018 Block of the Month

Hi Fellow Quilters,

Welcome to our third Block of the Month!  We’ve started a Face Book group for everyone who would like to share a picture of the project that you’ve made with your blocks, or to see the pictures from other quilters.  We’d love to have you join our Facebook group,  2018 BOM  and post your BOM photos.

April showers bring flowers, so get ready for Spring with a cute quilted basket!  Baskets are such wonderful utilitarian objects!  They can be used to carry a picnic to the park, to gather flowers for a bouquet, or to collect Easter eggs and candy.  My oldest son was born on Easter Sunday, so we would often celebrate his birthday with an Easter egg hunt when he was small.  It didn’t even have to be Easter on his birthday for us to enjoy an egg hunt, and we could hide the eggs several times (even without candy inside) before he tired of gathering them up again.

March’s block is a very simple paper pieced Spring Basket, appropriate for all skill levels.  Because the block is so simple and fast to make, you can have some fun being creative with embellishments this month!  My Spring basket block is decked out with easy fabric yo-yo’s, buttons, and appliqued leaves.   I kept the embellishments simple, and I love it!  Other options for embellishments include lace, ribbon, or rick-rack trims, appliques, buttons, ribbon roses, bows, beads, sequins, heat-set rhinestones, and so forth.  Use your imagination and enjoy the creative process.  

When choosing fabric, make sure that you have good contrast between the main basket color, contrast handle and trim, and background fabrics.  I had a hard time deciding upon a color combination, and ended up making two very different basket blocks.  You can choose any colors that you love; anything that says “SPRING!!!” to you would be perfect.  I’d love to show a photo of my fabric choices, but I used scraps for my baskets and the fabric is all gone.  Don’t worry about me though; I have plenty of other fabrics in my extensive collection.  

The pattern is available to purchase in Ms P’s Pattern Shop!

Here are my finished 12” miniature quilts:

The Spring Basket block is framed and bound with a contrasting fabric, and the outer borders were made using scrappy squares.  As a finishing touch, I added another appliqued leaf and a yo-yo flower to each of the corners.  Cute as a button!

The pattern is available for purchase from Ms P’s Pattern Shop!

Thank you for stopping by for a  visit today!  I hope that you’ll enjoy making your Spring Basket paper pieced block.  If you’d like to share a picture or see the pictures of projects from other quilters, please join our Facebook group,  2018 BOM  and post your quilt photo.We love to read your comments!  Have you tried out any of the BOM patterns yet?  Your feedback would be appreciated.

Until next month- Happy quilting,

Sharon