Online inspiration

Lately a few of my smaller projects have been inspired by ones I've seen online. I saw a post on Crazy Mom Quilts about a dish towel she made. That same weekend I cleaned out my project scrap bin and found a strip of fabric I had cut off of my stripes quilt. I also remembered I had a dish towel from the last time I had made a few and boom! an instant project done.

That website was also the inspiration for finishing up the pillow project I had set aside for a month or three. When I finished my wonky stars quilt, I had two pink stars leftover. I knew I wanted to make pillows with them, but when I made the first one, it was a bit small. So when Crazy Mom Quilts posted her pillow project last week, I realized what to do. Add more fabric around the edge. Duh! Now it is a pillow (and again, I already had the pillow insert waiting).

And then last week Rachel on Stitched in Color issued a challenge to quilt along with her through the book Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters. I have the book too but I just keep looking at. It doesn't make much sense just looking at it though since it is all about improv and playing along. It seems to be the thing you just have to start doing. So I did.
I made this:

I didn't like it so much. The colors were just too jangly together, especially the pink in such large pieces with the other two fabrics. Next time I will be more thoughtful with my fabric choices. I felt like I would like it better if there was some lighter colors to break it up, so I cut the large piece up into smaller squares and made this:

It was a bit better. Not my most favorite quilt in the world, but it's definitely an interesting little baby quilt. Because it is so small, I went ahead and finished it up.

Now I have another baby quilt ready for give away someday!