Cloudy with a chance of poppies

I was delighted when Amanda Herring asked me to join in on the Desert Bloom blog tour for her newest line with Riley Blake. She has made so many great fabric collections and this one had some prints I was seriously crushing on.

Desert Bloom is inspired by Amanda's love of Utah, a state I'd like to visit sometime, and she even sent along a sweet little Utah care package. Did you see the amazing cookies she had commissioned to match the fabric? Adorable!

The blues in this line are my favorite so I really wanted to make something to take advantage of those. I've been playing around with designing some paper piecing patterns in EQ7 and decided some clouds and rain might be cool. Even the Utah desert needs a little rain sometimes, right?

The clouds are 10 x 20" and were fairly quick to piece despite the amount of tiny sections. I may have to work on that... The rain blocks are also 10 x 20". How perfect are those geometric stripes for rain? I love them.

I kept the quilting pretty simple with horizontal waves for wind, vertical curvy lines on the rain, and some cloud-like echoes in the clouds. I was able to use the longarm at my local store, Sewing Machine Service, which made it go super quick and easy!

I couldn't leave out the red prints altogether and what better for the back of the quilt than a whole field of poppies that have been well watered with all of this rain? My friend Kenzie approves.

The quilt finishes at 60 x 70", a great size for snuggling on the couch. Just as soon as this ridiculously hot Seattle weather passes, that is!

Be sure to check out all of the other stops on the tour. There has been some great stuff so far with even more to come.

6/6 - Riley Blake Designs

6/6 - Fabric Mutt

6/7 - That's Sew Kari

6/7 - Beri Bee Designs

6/8 - A Bright Corner

6/8 - Allison Sews

6/9 - Life After Laundry

6/9 - Orchid Owl Quilts

6/10 - Snickerdoodle Stew

6/10 - Just Let Me Quilt

6/13 - Down Grapevine Lane

6/13 - Cream Craft Goods

6/14 - Quilting Jet Girl

6/14 - Rae Gun Ramblings

6/15 - Ameroonie Designs

6/15 - All Things Belle

6/16 - Sue Daley Designs

6/16 - Trillium Design

6/17 - Happy Quilting Melissa

6/17 - Simple Simon & Co.