Undercover mission

2013 is filled with some very exciting weddings. Both of my sisters and one of my very best girlfriends are getting married. Obviously, these are some very important people, and I'd love to make each of them a wedding quilt. But time! Time is not my friend!  And yet, somehow, in the middle of the Blizzard of 2013 I was able to get one of the quilt tops done.

I had pre-ordered a jelly roll of Simply Color by V and Co. for Moda, but then proceeded to stare at it for months. It was nearly impossible to take it out of its wrapping --  it was so perfect all wrapped up! But then, Saturday morning I woke up to thirty (30!!!) inches of snow outside my window and (I kid you not!) a four foot snow drift against the front door. My whole body must have screamed "rainbows, now!" because  I overcame my fear of the world's-most-beautiful-jelly-roll pretty quickly  :)

I started with Cluck Cluck Sew's "Strip and Flip" pattern, but made a few modifications.  Inspired purely by laziness I used  2.5 inch strips, instead of 2 inches.  In keeping with the slightly larger scale, I used 2 inch strips for the white vertical lines. And lastly, I added on quite a few extra strips to the top and bottom to make the quilt lap size --  my final quilt is 48 x 66 inches or so.

I definitely spent a good amount of time obsessing over which strips would go where. It was pretty tricky to arrange them so that there was a smooth color transition, while also balancing darks and lights.  I'm really happy with the final layout, though there were a few happy accidents that happened in the "flip." See how the orange chevrons meet up with the purple chevrons? I wish I could say that was planned or a stroke of genius, but it wasn't :) It's so cheery and happy, just like it's future owner. I can't wait to give it to her!

Now I just have to find the perfect binding/backing... and make sure this quilt stays a secret!