Greatest Hits...32 Color Paintbox

Many quilters make quilts for family members, quilts for baby showers, quilts for special occasions and loved ones – myself included.  I think that every quilt I made (with the exception of my first) was given away to friends and family.  But as soon as I saw Oh Fransson’s Paintbox Quilt, I wanted that quilt.  All.  For.  Myself. 

I started it in January 2010 when she first started her Paintbox Quilt-along and began buying up fabrics and (my first) solids at a rapid pace!  I tried to match up solids to fabrics that I already had and figured that a few blocks a week wouldn’t be too hard to keep up with.  I did okay for two months.  Then – surprise!  Baby #2 is coming!  Somehow with everything else to juggle, I found my beloved project majorly derailed. 

Fast forward to 2012.  Yeah…you read that right.  Two years.  After seeing the instructions pegged up on my project board and pining for that quilt for AGES, I opened up the box that I had been keeping all my blocks in and decided to tally them up to see how much further I had to go before I came remotely close to finishing the top.  Counting….counting.  WAIT.  This cannot be.  I put away all these blocks and only had 8 more to go??  After kicking myself repeatedly, I was able to finish up the 8 blocks (and replaced a few more that I found better fabrics for over the 2 year waiting period) plus the white sashing and I had a finished quilt top after another month!

The back was so much fun to finish – the letters were all traced and appliqued using Wonder Under. 

 

Then I finished it off with a black and white binding.  I have a major weakness for black and white bindings on colorful quilts - it just always looks good to me! 

So do I have a favorite block in my Paintbox?  Well….maybe the grey bicycle?

 

Or the yellow scissors?

 

No, the pink birds!

Or the coral flowers?

 

Maybe the navy star pattern?

 

It’s just too hard to choose – I loved all of these fabrics!!  Looking at this section always reminds me of a packet of Lifesavers.

 

I love it all –every single block.  Which just makes it all the sweeter that it’s ALL MINE.