Quilting Progress – Finally!

In my 2018 goals post, I talked about how I really wanted to finish my first quilt this year. I’m moving in summer and, as I mentioned then, I’m not sure my sewing machine will get set up where we move to so I’m attempting, however vainly, to get it done by then.

Last year my process was to piece the quilt blocks, basted them and quilted them in sets of four. (there are four blocks of each of the six fabrics I’m using).

I managed to completely finish just 2 sets of four last year, and pieced the tops of the next set.

Evidently this method doesn’t work for me, stopping to cut material is the biggest time consumer (other than all those other projects I did but shhh). So I’ve decided to piece all of the blocks in one go, baste them all and them quilt them all.

Step one and two of this plan was finished this week. Like the awesome blogger I am, I forgot to take any photos as I was going along. 

All 12 of the rest of the blocks have now been pieced. And all 16 of the blocks (the 12 I just pieced and the four left over from last year) have now been basted, thanks to my mum and the really handy fusible batting. That means I can now see my quilt and it’s exciting!

I’ve laid them out on my parents King size bed so you can see them all together (It was literally the only place big enough and I had to stand on a chair to get this picture). It’ll be slightly smaller than this once they are all trimmed and joined together and should drape nicely on my small double – although now I’m thinking about it I probably won’t have a small double when I move…..

This isn’t the final layout, I was just doing it quickly so you get the idea. It’s great to be able to SEE the quilt I’m making now that all the blocks are there. All six fabrics have been included and I’m, thankfully, happy with my picks! Hopefully that’ll give me extra motivation as the next step is quilting those 16 new blocks. Which is a big task but at least I won’t have to keep changing my set up between each thing. I have no idea when I’ll get it done by as I’ll still need to join all the blocks together and then bind the quilt. I still don’t think I’ll have this all done by summer but I’m going to try!

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