Octadot: A Two-Sided Quilt

Surprise!  I made a scrap quilt that isn't blue-themed!

And, yup, the cat's out of the bag: I'm a Packer fan!  I think my dad thought I was joking when I said that the reason for my trip back home was to take quilt photos, but I was completely serious.  In fact, there's more:

It's a two-sided quilt!  I actually finished this quilt back in March, but knew the photos needed to be taken in Green Bay and this was the first time since then that I've been back.  It was almost magical - the day was so windy, but each time my son held up the quilt for a photograph, the wind would die down and it would hang perfectly straight.  It's like the quilt wanted to be photographed at Lambeau!  

I loved the Octadot pattern when it was released in October 2025, but there was a small problem: I had told myself I wasn't allowed to start a new quilt until I finished a few quilts from my WIP list.  But it was one of those patterns that just gets stuck in your head and you can't stop thinking about it.  Finally, I came up with a loophole: what if I used that green wideback fabric that had been sitting in my stash for years and made Octadot as a back for the football quilt blocks that I had started back in 2017?  That's not really starting a new quilt, is it?

And with that, it was full steam ahead.  I raided my stash and used every single yellow fabric I could find, from the scrap bins to charm packs to fat quarters and even yardage.  The half-squares on the edges are from scraps that weren't big enough to be full squares.  The end result is a scrappy top in which no two yellows are identical.

Back in 2017, my youngest son was five and a little sad when his older brothers went to sleep away camp.  He was also a big fan of the football quilt I had made for his teddy bear and asked if he could have a "football quilt like bear's".  I asked if he wanted to help and he said yes!  So we made a copy of Bear's quilt with the Molli Sparkles football block, then we used a Lori Holt Spelling Bee pattern to make a Clay Matthews jersey block because that was the jersey he wore at the time.  But after that, he lost interest in the project.  I made the uprights in 2022 when I was doing "touch all the WIPs" challenge, but that was the only progress in almost a decade.  So the Octadot pattern was really a blessing in disguise. I got out that Spelling Bee book again and used the Octadot blocks as leaders and enders while I was piecing the "Go Pack Go" block and then puzzled everything together into the finished back.

I could have easily quilted this myself, but I wanted to go with a theme so I asked Jill at Slipper Scholtz Studio to longarm quilt it with a football motif.  It was the perfect finishing touch.  Then I had to go shopping to find a yellow print to use at the binding because every single one of my yellows was already in the quilt top and I didn't want to have any repeats.

And there you have it, a lovely two-sided quilt to enjoy during this football season.  We lost last week, but it wasn't on the couch yet (I had it packed for our road trip already), but it's out now and ready to bring us some luck this week and going forward.  Go Pack Go!