26 fabrics - 24 log, 1 centre, 1 sashing - 40 large blocks, 16 mini blocks - complete!
To make the quilt square, I did the math then chucked it all away and decided instead to simply double the size, and double the number of fabrics. This meant I needed to add another 6 FQ's to Julie's selection of 18 fabrics
Spoiled for choice
Sewing the blocks was super easy (once you manage to figure out the correct way to align the logs)
Oops - wrong way round - where's that un-picker?
Random log picking. It was all pieced completely randomly, honest! Well, almost. When a block was mostly all green or all purple, I cheated, if there were 2 fabrics the same next to each other I cheated, but mostly they were put together by pulling random strips out of a bag.
Too many strips!
Although I doubled the amount of fabrics, I cut the amount of strips per FQ as required in the pattern. I ended up with far too many! There was some confusion also about which way to cut the strips, which I think added to my extra large collection.
Measure against the seamlines...............
............ then trim back to size
Harriet, in her wisdom, has you cut the strips 1/8" wider than required, then trim them back to size after piecing. This method gives you an extremely accurate sized block. The chain style piecing is super fast but the trimming is oh so tedious! Sew..press..trim..repeat..repeat..repeat...........................
Halfway through
After each compete round, I checked the block size against a template
I got there in the end, but have a look at the leftovers...........
I have enough fabric & strips left over to make another quilt!
Ok, so my maths isn't great, which is not good news as now I have to work out the sashing lengths. Wish me luck!
Hi Lesley,
ReplyDeleteI thought Carrie would have time to get back to you before now, but we are just finishing up a 5-day Quilters Academy I boot camp and she is cooking for all of us. Hopefully she will get a bit of time tomorrow afternoon. The instructions in the book are correct, but she can walk you through it as she made the quilt and wrote the instructions as she made it.
Harriet
Hi Harriet - the quilt is now finished, sandwiched and awaiting quiliting.
ReplyDeleteAs I battled my way through this one I remember thinking that sometimes it would be wonderful to be learning this in a class, with a teacher to hand. The book is brilliant but there are times when it would be so much easier to just be shown how a new technique is done before tackling it yourself.
If Carrie could set me straight on where I went wrong, I'd really appreciate it. I'll be blogging the saga of putting this quilt together later tonight.