This month’s check in is coming a week early because of the holiday next week. This shortens things a smidge for December, but lengthens the time until the next one. It’s a glass half empty/half full situation.
Since the last check in, I now have 11 blocks completely finished, 1 being appliquéd, 1 fully basted and several background options cut out. This means I finished 2 more blocks and started on a 3rd, which isn’t too terrible considering it’s December and there are other things and projects going on.
My approach continues to be a very relaxed one. This project is SO great for picking up in the evenings when I don’t have the energy/focus/motivation for anything else. It’s great.
The plan is still to wrap up on all of the blocks before the end of the next 2 months, and I think I can get there!
Highlights and reflections this month include the following:
+ I’m liking the strategic discovery last month in how I’m appliquéing the pieces.
+ I discovered new needles this month and am giving them a try. Clover size 10 Appliqué needles are my go-to, but when some 12s came under my radar I had to give them a go. They’re a bit thinner and slightly shorter than what I’m used to, and they’re great! 10s are still my favorite, but I’ll definitely be using these as well.
+ This month I’ve squeezed in some other projects, including some gift sewing that I can’t share yet, and a Wiksten shift for myself. (Sidenote; I’m LOVING it, it’s such a great pattern.) After shooting a pic of it with a finished Hunt block, it gave me the idea of a potential mixing of the two…
Thanks for following along, see you next month!
(If you’d like a copy of my Hunt pattern or the templates, you can find them here and here.)
I love a project that shows little bits of many different things, and that’s what my Bartow Quilt in Collection CF fabrics is all about.
This design goes back to 2014 and the 30th anniversary of Kona Cotton. I was asked to design a free project, and Bartow is what I came up with. (You can read about it in my previous blog post here.)
There’s even another version that I started at the same time as the first one, but I didn’t complete until last year. Ha!
What I love about this project is how the design creates a gallery of color, fabric or whatever you want it to be in all of the little pieced snippets. With so many colors and prints in this new (old) collection, I wanted a quilt that would capture little bits of all of it. This made Bartow an easy choice!
Fabric selection and planning is made easy because Bartow works from a charm pack (5″ squares). To recreate mine, all you need is a CF charm pack, your background fabric and a binding fabric that will fill in for a bit of the pieced top as well.
The background for this one is Kona Natural.
I chose this binding, because I liked the color and how it would frame the quilt. Plus I liked it being used in some of the piecing in the top as well.
My mom Kathy Friedlander pieced the top, and Gina Pina quilted it with an allover grid (just like in one of the previous ones.)
This is one of those quilts that is fun to lay with, because you notice different fabrics each way it’s turned.
You can find the fabric info and pattern on the Robert Kaufman site here, and I’ve also created a special pattern page on my site as wellhere.
We’re halfway there! I cannot believe it, and I’m happy (and surprised) with my progress and hope that you are making good progress too.
My goals this month were fairly loose. I only finished appliquéing 1 block over the last month, and I have the appliqué on another one underway.
To tally things up at this 6-month point, I have 9 blocks fully completed, 1 block being appliquéd, 3 fully basted blocks and several background panels cut out and ready to get set up. I need to figure out the appliqué fabrics for the final blocks, which I’m sure I’ll map out all together. It’s easier for me to work in that way, and I hope to do that before the next check in.
I did have one strategic revelation this month. If you’ve taken a class from me, you know that I love thinking about strategic sewing. I tend to plan out how I baste and appliqué each block so that it’s an efficient use of thread, steps and time. If it makes sense, I start/stop in certain areas, I may leave basting thread to be continuous between nearby sections or I may make use of other tactics. They are small things that over the course of a project can make a difference. Of course whatever works if it gets you to the finish line, but this stuff is fun for me to think about while I’m working through a project.
With every Hunt I’ve made, I’ve appliquéd each piece separately. This is such an obvious approach, that it’s taken me this long to realize that there is an alternative. Working individually isn’t only logical, but it is definitely the way to go if there are a bunch of different colors and you need to change thread for each of them. I can’t think of another way to do it in that case. However, when all of the pieces are the same color, like I have here, it’s different. I realized that I could work multiple shapes continuously instead of stopping to cut and reset a new length of thread at each shape.
If you take a look at the block below, the shapes on the left are only appliquéd at the top. This is because I am working continuously along the tops, easily flowing from shape to shape. I am making my thread jumps from the back, which are not seen from the front. (Note: to do this knot at the back of each shape without cutting the thread, jump to the next shape, knot on the back to secure and pull the thread to the front. Don’t cut the thread, don’t reset.)
This makes for a more continuous flow and importantly, you can now use a full length of thread before stopping, recutting and resetting up. I discovered this on this block, because I needed to use a gray thread on the gray tops and the green thread at the bottom. It seemed silly to stop and start at each little top, and so I worked them continuously in this way. It seemed to go faster because I could use each strand of thread longer, and so I knew I wanted to try it for the other pieces. I think it helps, and I’m continuing to try it out. Let me know what you think, if you’re into the nerdy details!
Aside from that revelation, it was fun to finish this block and to see the way the print works in this context.
I’ve been storing my blocks in a flat stack on a dresser, but I do pull them out monthly to take a pic. It’s nice to see the finished stack getting larger.
I’ve decided that over the next 3 months, I’d like to try to get all of my blocks finished, and I’ve updated my calendar to reflect that. This way I can spend the final 3 months assembling my quilt top, quilting and binding this project. That’s the plan anyway! It helps to verbalize it, right?
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