Linking up with the Zig Zag Quilt Challenge

Marcia over at Marcia's Crafty Sewing and Quilting shared how to make a zig zag block and challenged us to make a small quilt using it.  It's easy, she says, and you could make a quilt in just a couple of hours!  And if you link up with her by June 18, you can be entered to win free quilting on your zig zag quilt.  What's not to love about this deal, right? 

So I picked out some polka dot fabric that has been languishing in my stash for YEARS, and added some primary solids of which I had only a fat quarter or less of each.  Gotta use up the stash to make room for more, right?

She shared two ways of making the blocks on her blog - I chose to sew strips together and subcut.  My polka dot strips are 4" wide and my solid strips are 2" wide.  I cut:

sewed, and then sub-cut into 4" wide sections.

Then I pinned those to another strip of solid and sewed.

After cutting apart, I used my ruler to make wonky 4.5" squares.  Definitely easy!  The only thing I don't like about this method is the waste.  The fabric I cut off really wasn't big enough to make anything with, but when you add all the cut off fabric together it adds up.  The frugal scrap quilter in me balks at that.  But my scraps are currently helping to fill up an old pillowcase which will then be sewn shut into a "free" doggie pillow.  So in truth, my "waste" isn't wasted.

My initial layout had alternate polka dot squares, but I worried that I would run out of fabric.

I decided to forgo the alternate squares.

I didn't want just a wide border, so I split it with a 1/4 " flange - is that the right word?  It is sewn into the seam and is like a little flap.  The finished quilt is about 33" x 37".

And while the quilt didn't take me "just a couple of hours", it WAS quick and easy and I'm excited to gift it to a baby when it is quilted.  Here's hoping I win the free quilting!  At the rate that I hand quilt, and with the number of other quilts I have in line before this one, I might not get to gift it to a baby until it is my own grandchild if I have to rely on quilting it myself!

There's still time to make a zig zag quilt - are you taking the challenge, too?