Disappearing 9 Patch

A couple of Charm packs and a bit of extra matching fabric and I was off on to a challenge of possibilities for a new quilt.  I found a pattern called "Disappearing Nine Patch" and made up as many blocks as I could from the two charm packs.  In order to make a decent sized quilt I decided to alternate solid fabric blocks of the same size.

The blocks can be placed in different directions to form repeating designs, but this wasn't working so I randomly joined them while spreading out the darker patches.  The end result wasn't exciting until I added a 1 inch black border around the center.  It still needed to be bigger so I decided on a patched border using red and orange, black and gray.

The gray was left over from a pilgrims costume for Halloween from eons ago.  I was so tired of seeing it still in my stash and was looking forward to using it up and seeing the last of it.  While using it for the border I had to be very careful because I didn't have much left and wanted to make it work.  Finally I'm down to the last side of the quilt and can see that I'm going to be short by a 1.5 X 2.5 piece.

I've looked high and low through all of my scraps hoping to find one tiny little scrap that would save me; but no such luck.  In the end I chose a flowered, gray, tone on tone, fabric that was pretty close to my costume fabric and stitched it in the border using the wrong side of the fabric.  I think it's going to work.

Coming down the home stretch.  I've shopped for a fabric for the backing that will complement the Max and Whiskers collection by Moda.  Bingo!  I found some with a black background with colored dog paw prints in many of the colors in the patchwork.  In fact, I'm thinking I like the backing better than the front.

No matter which side stays up a quilt is a good thing to have for a warm nap.