My hand stitching continues. I try to work on something by hand every day. Some days it's just for a few minutes and some days I get lost in the process for hours. For the past couple of months I've been working on this crib-sized quilt. Since Quiltcon was held very near me this year I volunteered for a few days and was inspired to get back to quilting. I finished a couple of other quilts long ago and then stopped for no particular reason.

I heard about the Riley Blake Fabric Challenge Spring 2016 through the Modern Quilt Guild. Riley Blake sent out cuts of their "Sashing Stash" line and challenged quilters to come up with designs that featured their solids mixed with the multi-patterned print.

Given the short turn-around time, and the very slow rate at which I work I opted for a very simple design and a small size. I ended up using just one of the printed patterns, which means I've got a lot more quilts to make to use up the rest of the fabric.

In researching stitch motifs I paged through my favorite embroidery book, The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook, where I learned that "zigzag motifs were considered protective, as evil spirits cannot follow the zigzag lines..., and diamond points also kept evil away. So to keep whatever baby will someday use this, I made the shapes zigzags, and quilted in diamond points. Double protection!