Mosaic Tiles Quilt Along

So I got this great book for Christmas Modern Bee: 13 Quilts to Make with Friends. I had been perusing all the pages, drooling over the quilts, wondering which ones I could actually make by myself without too much fuss. Then, Lindsay at Craft Buds, whose book it is, posted a Quilt Along with the January quilt which is Mosaic Tiles. The quilt was actually made by Suki Newbold, with the help of her bee mates. This, I thought, is a great place to start. So I did and here, today is my take on the quilt.

 I have to tell you up front, that I am sewing from my stash. I am trying so hard not to buy fabric, although my husband has said I could if it was a very special fabric, or a very important line in quilting world. So far, no purchases for 2014. I had most of a charm pack of Simple Marks Summer, by Malka Dubrawsky. I love the saturated colors of this line and have been trying to come up with a way to use it. I had a couple of yards of City Scenes by Jane Dixon for Andover that I bought to use as a possible backing for a quilt.

I loved how the colors popped against the grey and I loved how the grey was not plain and flat with all the black and white lines. The only thing I didn't have was the red that I wanted for the cross piece. Since I elected to start this project so early, I was able to buy the red, Simple Color, from an earlier line of Malka's. I always get to buy some fabric at the 35% of new year's day anniversary sale at my LQS. So really, I haven't broken my fast since I hadn't started yet at that point.

 I did audition some other reds for this space, but none would do. I decided to make a smaller version of this quilt, since I had less that one full charm pack of the fabric to work with. I ended up making 13 blocks and putting the 13th on the back.

 I used some already cut, extra strips of th City Scenes for the binding. I didn't want to detract from the rest of the quilt.

 I quilted the red cross pieces in straight line 1/2 inch apart, going in the direction of the cross, and turning corners so it started and ended at the edge of the quilt.

 The back is all greys from my stash of leftovers from other projects. There is the 13th block and the rest of the City Scenes.

 Here you can see the quilting. I quilted loops on the rest of the quilt using a lovely reddish orange shade of Auriful.

And here is my label in the bottom corner. I had one warmish day to take pictures outside and I grabbed it, even though the quilt has not been washed yet, so it lacks the crinkly goodness.

One more fun pic before I go. Thanks to Lindsay for putting together a great book. I will definitely be trying some of the other projects in there this year, as I sew my way through my stash.