Checkers in the Park quilt finished

Most of the time I pluck elements from a few different quilts and morph them into my own design.  But when Pat at Life in the Scrapatch posted her free tutorial last week I fell in love with this cute idea.  She calls her pattern Checkers in the Park.    This was just the pattern needed to satisfy the need for a quick finish.

Immediately I ran to the stash and started pulling fabrics.

Pieces were cut before realizing my fabric selection was lacking yardage.  Driving into town wasn't on my list of things I wanted to do. Totally changing my colorway and having cut blocks isn't good.   After weighing my option I chose to just use what was on hand and change the checkered board colors. 

 And you know me, if I can work a cherry into a pattern all the better!

After playing around with a few feather quilting ideas I decided simple means quick gratification.  And it's supposed to be a utility quilt.  Utility means boring quilting, right?  

Backings are a great place to use fabric that you really don't like.  This cheater fabric was purchased from an estate sale.  7 boxes of fabric...3 boxes of "way to ugly" was donated to thrift stores.

 It's the perfect size for the table on the back porch.  Ross has been so busy lately I just didn't have the heart to ask him to cut some wooden disks for checker pieces.  Guess it's time for me to break out my power tools that have been collecting dust. 

 For now it can join the rest of the happy "Cherry" quilts.  

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's freebie from Connie over at Free Motion by the River

Click here for pattern

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