Shamrocking and Rolling...

I posted a while back about the custom quilt that I was doing for a coworker.  The reversible quilt that we are making is for her dad – the side I already shared features a paper pieced spiral heart in colors of red and blue to honor his service as a veteran.  The side that I’m working on now is to display their Irish heritage and to remember some members of the family that are no longer with them.

(Apologies for the pictures on these - it's a pretty rainy and dreary day here today and outside pictures weren't an option!)

I found this cute (and free!) paper pieced pattern of a shamrock by Trillium Design that I wanted to try.  We are creating a column of 4 shamrocks – one for each family member to be remembered.  Each has its own green fabric that my friend picked out and has their name embroidered on it in orange floss.  

I went back and forth about this pattern…I could have just made a template and cut out a shamrock shape to applique onto the white background and called it a day. It would have been a lot less work and the 4 blocks would have been done in no time.  Instead, I've been piecing 4 large shamrocks here and there for what feels like weeks.  But, I think the effort is well worth it.  These look so great and I was really proud of these pieced blocks!  

I was so excited about this one in particular...I tried SO hard to get all the fabric directional and fairly well lined up.  It went along great until I got to the last of the three large pieces.  Shoot.  Call it my humility block because I decided not to pick it out and rip the paper backing to shreds in the process.

There’s only a little bit of paper-picking and embroidery left to do and then I can get the whole back pieced and move onto the quilting.  All the craziness of the past month really halted slowed down my progress on this, but at least it’s a project with a far off deadline.  I was just hoping to have it done ridiculously early to get to focus on my own stuff.  Oh well – it is what it is and it's a quilt that's destined to be cherished and loved!