Improvised Prairie Chain

The sew alongs I've been participating in are winding down.  There is a contest I've been wanting to enter and my concentration has been on that rather than the sew alongs.  So now the name of the game for the sewing along is fast and easy.  I just couldn't get to the end only to stop.

For Sew-vivor the last challenge is quilting.  The last time I did quilting was for a quilting class in college.  In 1999.  It's been a while.  Ever since taking that class I have wanted to make a full sized quilt using the Prairie Chain pattern I made of block of for my quilting class.  I love how the pattern looks like the colors weave over and under.  It looks intricate but it's super simple.  Back when I took the class I made a copy of the pattern.  Now that it's almost 14 years and 5 house moves since copying the pattern I seem to have misplaced it.  Go figure.  And I can't find the pattern online, either.  It was in a book of pioneer quilts, so if you can tell me where I can get the original I will do a happy dance in your honor.

After buying three fat quarters and measuring the original quilt block I put together a pillow for Pink Blur.  Her sister has a little pillow and there are arguments about who gets to use it.  Hopefully this will eliminate the screaming.  Function as well as form.

I like how it looks.  The only thing I'm sad about comes from my own dumb mistake.  I wrote down the measurements on the left, measurements with seam allowances in the middle, and the half size measurements on the right.  Then I cut the brown triangles to the measurements in the middle and the other colors to the ones on the left.  Oops.  Then I cut the brown triangles down to the left side measurements to match the other strips, even though I knew the proportions would still be off.  It still turned out okay, just with a smaller background. There should be more of that lighter brown.

Blue Eyes still thinks the pillow should belong to her rather than Pink Blur.  I told her I'd make her a red one and that got her to stop bugging me.  I didn't say when I would make it...  Eventually.  Anyway, I still love this pattern.  Someday I'll make myself a king sized quilt in this pattern.