Shush submits to the economy block craze

Well I've finally done it.  Despite the fact that they're all over blogland and Instagram, and are a bit, well, faddy, I've joined the economy block craze.

If you don't know what an economy block is, here's a picture of 25 of them.  If you check out #economyblockalong on Instagram you can see, like, a million billion examples.  Some of them are very very cool.  Some of them are less cool, but designed with specific decor in mine.  Like so:

One complete economy block cushion with its boring cord cushion comrade

I used the tutorial posted by Rita at Red Pepper Quilts to make 5" blocks. I had absolutely no intention of making such small blocks, but the cushion form I was using was 25", so I didn't really have much of a choice. We have some cushions in the lounge which were a delicious brown and green stripe, and I liked the sage green backing and piping, but not the front. Hence my plan to make some new fronts for those babies.

I do like it when a designer puts together something especially for you, don't you?!

The intention was to find some fabrics that matched the wallpaper which we've just bought from the UK. I was very pleased when I discovered that the stash of Sarah Fielke's On the Pond I had recently nabbed in the Spotlight sale was exactly the right colour way. It was clearly meant to be!  I've decided that Sarah can be one of my peeps now, given that she's obviously trying so hard to help out.*

There was a touch of text print and Hello Tokyo added for some "pop" (to quote hubby)

I found the blocks a bit tedious to make at first. However I began to enjoy the zen of trimming and cutting when I got near the end. But I'm not sure that I will be making a quilt with these blocks any time soon though - not at 5" in any event!  I have great respect now for those quilts I have seen with hundreds of blocks.

Quilting - boring but effective straight lines

For the most part I have the points matching, or thereabouts.  I quilted the finished top with "stitch near the ditch" (my specialty) and straightish lines (another area of expertise) across the diagonals.  Interesting tip - if you mark your straight lines with a hera marker, then a walking foot with a seam guide (a metal guide marker in the middle) follows the mark in your fabric quite nicely.  I discovered this when I was too lazy to change my walking foot attachment after ditch stitching.

Then I unpicked the old cushion and re zipped and sewed it back together with the new front. When I tried to take some photos after work, I kept getting photo bombed. See. 

One slightly grubby Princess doing her best to get in front of the camera

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with how it all turned out. Now we just need to wallpaper to arrive. Well, and for me to make one more cushion top.  One thing at a time though, right?!

Linking up with Crazy Mom, Confessions of a Fabric Addict and TGIFF over at Quokka Quilts.

* the story about me stalking Sarah Fielke on Instagram to try and purchase of all of her fabric in the recent great Aussie destash will have to wait for another day.  Perhaps one of my less cool (and slightly single white female) moments.  I was cool though.  Really.  Really, I was.  Are you still there?