The Bookshelf Quilt Begins (with the Help of the Ginger Prince)

It has begun!

I usually only feel the lightning-quick passage of time at night when I'm trying to fall asleep, and I suddenly remember that both of my daughters will be going away to college in [insert exact number of days] and did I make enough of my time with them on this day that has just passed, surely not, I am wasting our precious time together and hey, I bet I will be SOOOOO sad when I drop them off, why don't I imagine what that will be like for a while, etc.

So yeah, that's a fun and easy way to fall asleep!

But helpfully, those intrusive thoughts took a quick little pass through my mind the other morning and I was suddenly struck with the thought of how MUCH MORE AWFUL it would be if I didn't even have the quilt I'd promised my daughter to give her when I dropped her off... and just like that, it was time to start the bookshelf quilt!

I'd also been psyching myself out by thinking that I'd probably have to figure out Foundation Paper Piecing to do cool bookshelf blocks, but to begin with I monkeyed around and pieced together some strips of scrap fabric to a neutral grey that I thought might make a good bookshelf background. I made a 10.5"x10.5" block that way, and liked it so much that I made another one. I put them next to each other, showed the kid, she freaking loved it, and all of a sudden the quilt became a LOT simpler!

Now the plan is to make the whole bookshelf from these simple bookshelf blocks, pretty much entirely from scraps and stash. I've already put in some sentimental fabrics, old Trashion/Refashion Show garments and scraps from multiple curtains, bits of novelty prints that the kids adored when they were small, etc., and on the whole it's just looking really cool so far. 

So obviously, when I had one whole shelf's worth of blocks, I had to set them up on a sunny bit of floor and photograph them together!

And then this guy showed up:

And then, to be honest, I just got really distracted taking cute photos of him in the sun:

He's just so beautiful, with his eyes that match his fur that matches the floor in the sun!

But you can kind of see the quilt blocks, right? They're the things under his cute little fluffity paws!

That orange batik stripe in the photo below used to be part of the curtains that hung in my bedroom when we brought his girl home for the first time. It's still some of the prettiest fabric that I've ever bought:

Aww, look! Now he's tearing them up, the little rascal! I put that grey strip in the middle of the block in the photo below to throw off the eye. I think it'll make it harder to pick out the repeat in the finished quilt:

Okay, he finally started getting bored/annoyed with me continually trying to get him to put his face in the sun:

And there you go--one whole shelf is done!

As I was laying these out, I realized that I could also make blocks that looked like stacks of books almost as easily, so I'll put some of those in there, too. I'd also like to have some blocks that have books leaning against each other, but I can't yet work out how to do those.

Could the answer be Foundation Paper Piecing, lol?

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!