I find it so hard to resist a good quilt-along. I like the instructions-as-you-go, I like the communal feel of the whole thing. All the better if it finds me a good use for a charm pack. Enter, Gen X Quilters:
It’s not like I don’t already have enough projects on my plate, but that has hardly ever stopped me before. I am particularly excited that I think I’m going to be able to pull this entire project directly from my stash. Here’s where I’m starting:
The instructions call for a charm pack (or two, if you want a larger quilt), as well as sashing, border, and a flange (something new for me!). I’m going with that medium gray for the sashing, salmon for the border, and what I believe is Kona Sage for the flange. Some of the blocks will require coordinating scraps, which I’ll just pull from my scrap bins as needed.
I initially thought I’d go straight for the lap-sized quilt. But seeing today’s cutting instructions and getting a better sense of how this is going to come together, as well as having some grasp on exactly how many hours there are in a day, I’m going to dial it back and stay smaller. But because I have a weird thing about preferring my quilts to be rectangular instead of square, I’m going to add one more row of blocks to make it 6×7, and use all 42 charms in the pack. I may use the second charm pack on the back, or I may just save it for another purpose. We’ll see.
I’m giving myself one additional challenge for this quilt. Do you ever have non-quilters ask you how long it takes to make a quilt? I certainly do, and it’s not that they want to know it took me a few weeks (or months) to complete the thing. They are trying to get a sense of how many actual hours of work it takes. So I’m going to try to keep track. See how long it *really* takes me to do the cutting, the piecing, the whole nine yards. I think I might be a little horrified by the answer, but at least now people will understand why I laugh when they suggest making and selling quilts as an actual living. I somehow don’t think that a fair hourly wage and a reasonable cost for the quilt will quite match up.
What about you? Anyone else joining this quilt-along?
Wow I love the fabric choices! When I read you have an issue with square quilts it made me laugh out loud because I am the same way and will opt to make the quilt a little on the ridiculously large size just to avoid it looking too square. I can’t wait to see how this new quilt turns out!
Yay! Thanks for joining in and I’m so glad you’re customizing right off the bat. I look forward to seeing your rectangular version! I think I am scared of actually timing a quilt…. good luck!
ha! i get asked that all the time! it sure would go a lot faster if i got more than hour every few days to devote to it. i generally think i could knock out a baby quilt in less than a week, but that time gets spread out over 6 to 8 weeks. i’m interested to see how you clock in!
carl gatto recently posted..The Bird House
Great idea to track it.
My friend downloaded a ticker to track her progress on the “Insanity II” hexi quilt. She sent me a text the other day that she is .46% complete. POINT FOURTY-SIX PERCENT. I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.
… that won’t be the case here… clearly. Clearly.
[...] to say, I had to completely abandon the Charmed Prints quilt-along. There was just no way that was going to happen. As it is, I have two completed quilt tops [...]