Scrappy Garden Trip-Alongs

My traditional quilting bee, the Block Builders Bee, holds a quilt block lottery 8 months of the year.  This past February, the lottery block was based on Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trips Around the World, in a garden version created by Betty Rivers.  Lucky for Betty, she won all the blocks in the lottery that month and made this lovely quilt.

Admiring her lovely quilt, five of us in the Block Builders Bee, decided to do a side swap, so I busily began making blocks for this side trade.  We were using Betty's variation, although Bonnie Hunter's original free pattern can be found by clicking here or looking on her website: quiltville.com  under the free patterns section.  She calls this pattern "Scrappy Trips Around the World".

There is also a Flickr group called Scrappy Trip Along which can be found here.  Take a peek in this group to discover and enjoy many variations of this simple pattern.

Soon, I am conducting a "how-to" workshop for this block for my local Modern Quilt Guild.  This means that I am busily stitching up several samples.  The first two are now at my quilter's being quilted (Thank you Pamquiltaholic!).  Here is a photo of each before I added a final 1 1/2" border to them.  

I call the first quilt "Diagonal Garden Rows" and the quilt below I call "Scrappy Garden Strip Along"

I am now working on more samples and variations as I race to finish before my workshop!