WIP: Thomas the Tank toddler quilt

I know what you're thinking... isn't there another quilt for my son I'm supposed to be working on? I'll get to his Space Robot Quilt soon enough, but always intended for that quilt to be twin or even full-sized. Considering his one-year-old birthday is coming up on May 7th, a toddler-bed sized quilt is more age appropriate.

And I actually hadn't planned on making him a toddler quilt. But I was at Wal-Mart and saw a Thomas the Tank fat quarter bundle on clearance for $7. It just so happened we were planning a Thomas and Friends themed birthday party, so I brought the bundle home even though I wasn't sure what I'd do with it. I'd already made Thomas Train themed bunting (I'll post pictures of that in a couple of days).

So I decided to just go ahead and make a quilt. It's a "Stack and Slash", which I knew about because it was the last kind of quilting my Gramma told me about before she died, and she had one in progress. I have her plans, which called for squares of fabric. But when I Googled "Slash Quilts" as Gramma called them, I came across one tutorial that called for hacking away at fat quarters. Works for me!

Again with the iPhone pictures... perhaps my PhotoShopping will distract you from the dismal picture quality.


This is one busy quilt. Some of my Thomas FQs were duplicates, which didn't help the busy-ness. Plus it's a lot of the same colors.

I already have one regret... can you guess what it is? All of that stripey coordinate seems to've ended up to the right of the quilt. That's the last time I ask my husband how he likes my quilt layout before I sew it.

Here's a shot after I've added some of the border. I like the contemporary look of a sans-border quilt, but I'm adding one to the quilt to both add size and in an attempt to neutralize all of the busy-ness.

Why I picked stripes to take away "the busy" I have no idea.

Oh wait, yes I do, that's another husband thing.

I was cutting this pillow ticking I had from Gramma's stash in order to use it as a muslin for a pair of shorts, and husby remarked that it looked like railroad overalls. So when it came to this quilt, it fit all of the requirements; it was free, I had tons of it (a whole bolt), and it fit with the railway theme (well, kinda).

Overall, I like this "Stack and Slash" method and may make another, more colorful, one. It looks like a lot of work, but was actually one of the fastest and easiest quilt tops I've made (this is my first return to quilting since probably middle school). I like that it doesn't waste a lot of fabric-- I was able to use the entire FQ except what I lost when I was squaring up my blocks. That said, your blocks do shrink a lot as you go along thanks to all of the seams.