I’ll preface this with saying I’m just ecstatic to have come across this quilt along before it started and be in a position to actually participate in it! I’ve kept up so far and hope to keep it that way even with other projects happening simultaneously.
Picking Fabric
This is the first quilt in which I’ve done mostly stash busting, well except the big pile of low volume I bought but even then I went and bought a bunch then picked and chose which ones to use. I spread out my Bloggers choice bundles from the Fat Quarter Shop to help get a palette started. Vanessa Copola’s bundle immediately jumped to mind and I ripped open the bag to get started.
Her bundle consists of a number of beautiful fabrics from the following lines:
- Delicious Wishes by Izzy & Ivy Designs for Henry Glass Fabrics
- Jubilee by Bunny Hill Designs for Moda
- Remember by Carina Gardner for Riley Blake Designs
- Blushing by Margot Languedoc for Henry Glass Fabrics
- Blenders by Riley Blake Designs
- Garden Pindots by Michael Miller Fabrics
I also added Little Red Riding hood by Tasha Noel for Riley Blake Designs from my Rita Hodge Blogger bundle and a couple picks from Bungalow by Joel Dewberry for Free Spirit. Many of the low volume are from the Keepsake Calico wall at Jo-Ann’s but I mixed in some of the blogger bundle’s less vibrant pinks and yellows as low volume too.
I settled on one set of fat quarters then after eating, watching TV and staring at the fabric I did some re-arranging and fell in LOVE! I tinkered for a little while and swapped out a couple other pink and yellows from my stash.
The purple is the “pop” color and the green is the neutral. I know, not really neutral but I like the way it compliments the yellows while bringing some additional brightness. The first pulll had a grey stripe but the dark grey shade was too heavy against the vibrant and pale yellows and pinks and seemed to fight with the purple for the pop value.
Prewashing
I don’t usually prewash but there were two other quilts I needed to prewash for so I figured why not. Plus since I was mixing between collections of fabric, manufacturers and that purple screamed bleeder to me airing on the side of caution sounded like a good idea. I took all the fat quarters and folded them in half then spent FOREVER using my machine to overlock the raw edges to prevent fraying. Thank goodness I did cause everything came out of the was tangle free. Gonna have to share with y’all how I did that later!
Cutting
I was up to pace by cutting day (last Wednesday) but didn’t have enough time to cut it all Wednesday night so I hung the hooks for the design wall in my living room so that when I did get to cutting I had a place to lay it out and keep it out without having to fold up my design floor (aka what I call my design wall when it’s sprawled across my floor)
I somehow managed to get caught up on the cutting over the weekend though when I cut I was short on the larger squares. Dunno if my prewashing shrunk my fat quarters, if they were a bit small to begin with or if I was a bit heavy handed when trimming my edges. I’ll make it work though because I cut some extra 3.5″ squares and will replace some bigger squares with 4 patches.
Here’s my design wall with the 6.5″ and 3.5″ squares laid out on it. The best part is that the design board is in my living room so I’m driving myself bonkers re-arranging constantly…sigh. Excuse the lighting, it was kinda late and my lighting in that room leaves a bit to be desired!
I only have 9×10 rows on the wall, the throw size is supposed to be 10×12. I’m almost thinking I might just go with this size but I’ll make enough blocks to do the whole project and lay it out. Tonight I’ll power through making a bunch of the little four patches and place them up on the wall. I think instead of making all the penny patch blocks (the 4 patch + 3.5″ squares) I’ll get all the little 4 patches done and place them on the design wall but I might lay them out to get a good sense of color layout and then chain piece through and re structure the layout and not worry about getting it all 100% back to the original. Lots of sewing in my future! Wish me luck!