Eyes Crossed Spied quilt pattern tested...

When Melissa posted about her Eyes Crossed quilt I commented that sometime this year I needed to make a quilt for my nephew's little guy,and this looked like a winner.

My fabrics all cut and ready,the larger squares are from the Bots & Bolts fabric line.  I won a 6 piece fat eight bundle  during the For the Boys hop.  The smaller squares and rectangles were pulled from my stash.

This is Melissa's quilt top,posted here where you can also read about and see all the other testers versions.

After reading through the pattern for the first time,my thought was,oh man,what did I get myself into!  Don't get me wrong,this is a great pattern,and as you can see it turned out just fine.  What I had a hard time with was the layout.  This is where all of Melissa's pattern pages really came in handy for me.

Included in the pattern is a page with a close-up of the original layout,so you can see the fabrics and placement of them very well.  Of course there is also a page with all of the required supplies,which also includes a few abbreviations & notes.  The page with the cutting instructions has a picture "swatch" of each of the original fabrics used and  the corresponding fabric letter.

As always the directions are clear and concise with pictures of each step to make your block.  The one thing that I would suggest if you feel a little overwhelmed with trying to decide on the layout would be to make yourself a key.  At the bottom of the coloring page I made a key to help me.  Using a colored pencil I drew a rectangle and colored it in,then wrote the fabric that color represented inside the rectangle with a regular pencil.

The pattern makes a 60 x 60 quilt but,Melissa was gracious enough to let me change the size down a bit.  So my quilt top measures 48 x 48.  Let me tell you that the name of this pattern is perfect,because your eye just does not know where to land.  At least that is my feeling.

Once the layout decision was made and the fabrics cut this top went together rather quickly.  You can purchase the pattern from Melissa's Craftsy shop for only $7.50

Thank you S0 much for letting me test for you once again Melissa,after I got over my layout issues it was a cakewalk!

Dizzying Diamonds Pattern Review

Today is the Big Day!  Melissa over at  Sew BitterSweet Designs is releasing her third pattern today!  Congrats to you  my friend :)

                                                      (photo borrowed from Melissa's blog)

The photo above is the smaller(60x72)version that Melissa made,I just love the fabrics she chose for this quilt.

You might remember that I posted a sneak peak(above photo) a while back.  When Melissa asked if I would be interested in testing this pattern,you know I could not say no!  Especially since triangles are one of my favorites :)

This pattern is designed to use a layer cake,since I did not have one in my stash I used a bundle of The Red Thread by Andover Fabrics for the print and Marble Swirls by Moda,in green for my "solid".  I wanted a quilt that would not only read as Christmas but,could also work for everyday.

Melissa has such a talent for writing a pattern that is a little challenging yet,at the same time being easy to follow!  This is a great pattern for working on in between other projects,which is how I personally pieced this top.  It was easy to do in stages,and also easy to pick up from the last step completed and continue on to the next step.

Thank You Melissa for asking me to test this pattern,it was super fun to sew/piece together!  Want to purchase this pattern and make a Dizzying Diamonds quilt of your very own?  Visit Sew BitterSweet Designs at Craftsy for the pattern!