July UFO Project for 13 UFO's in 2013 Quiltalong

So the lucky UFO number for July was 8 (see here for explanation if you're confused by that statement!).

Now in the interest of honesty this project was not actually my number 8.  The reason being that my original project was to use up my rainbow charms I received in an online swap last year.  The only problem was that the black fabric I put aside for that project got pulled out recently to use in another quilt!  Wouldn't you know its number would come up as soon as I did that!  Anyway, I really don't want to buy any more fabric at the moment so I did a quick switcheroo and made this quilt my July project instead.  Given that I wanted to give this quilt to my Auntie for her 88th birthday in October I decided its need was more urgent anyway. So with that off my chest, onto the project!

Last year I made a quilt for my friend's mum (who is battling cancer) using this tutorial from Missouri Star. Its called a Tube Quilt and it is truly the easiest quilt I've ever made.  All you need are 2.5" width of fabric strips from two different fabrics and 4.5" strips from a third.  Each set of strips makes 2 blocks with one quarter of a block left over.

I found some fabric I thought Auntie Betty would like last year and put it aside for this project.  There are a few options on how you put the blocks together so I experimented a bit with the layout.

This is the layout I used for the one I made last year  - see photo of that quilt at the end of this post :

or this zig zag or chevron style layout is another option:

but I didn't feel it was really Auntie Betty's style.

This was my preferred layout in the end:

This quilt whips up so quickly so in no time I had it all stitched up!

While I managed to get this quilt sandwiched I lost a bit of sewing time this month due to a busy schedule so it isn't quilted yet.  I have a plan of what I want to do though so hopefully it won't take too long.  I might even take it with me to a sewing retreat weekend I have coming up at the end of August if I don't have it finished by then.

This is the quilt I made last year using the same method but a different layout and slightly less blocks:

I wasn't entirely happy with my fabric choices on that quilt but I'm much happier with the combination of fabrics this time around!

Thanks for visiting my blog today,