FLIMSY COMPLETE!

 Yeah!  My quilt top is complete!  I've been working steadily on this quilt for several weeks now, as you know if you've been following along on my blog.  Now to get it quilted soon, "Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise."

The pattern was in McCall's Quilting, Jan/Feb 2011 issue.  It was all set up for a swap among seven.

We each gathered 46 unique Civil War fat quarters. 23 were cut into seven five-inch squares, one for each of us.  23 others were made into seven criss-cross blocks, one for each of us.

 There were very few duplicates. As far as I know, there are only two repeated fabrics in this entire quilt.

PROGRESS

My Across the Spectrum Quilt is progressing nicely.  All the rows are together.  Borders are cut, and hopefully will go on later today.  It is spread out on my queen-sized guest bed in the photo.  I really prefer the scrappy/random placement of the blocks over the rainbow layout shown in the pattern for this quilt.

ON THE MOVE

 I've moved my sewing downstairs to our dining table for the duration of this project.  It gives me a much larger work space, plus the guest bed with rows all spread out in order is closer too.

I miss my loft, but I still have a great view with windows surrounding three sides of this area.

WOW = Working On Wednesday

It's another Wednesday and I'm working on my Across the Spectrum quilt.  This is the third Wed. in a row that I've posted about this quilt.  Amazing focus for me!  All the blocks are here now and I have all the rows sewn and am working on sewing them together.  Here are all the rows.  The ones in the background are stacked a bit so I could fit this on my queen-sized guest bed.  It's the largest design surface I have, other than the floor, and with two dogs there's not chance of it staying the way I have it laid out on the floor.

Today I'm washing my backing and border fabrics.  The goal is to stick with this one quilt, start to finish.  I don't think I have ever done that.  Focus, focus.  I'm hoping I can get the quilt rolled tight enough to machine stitch it on my DSM with my walking foot.

If not I'll either big stitch hand quilt it with perle cotton or tie it.  Be still purists!  I love tied quilts.  They have such a primitive look.  And I don't send my quilts out to a longarmer.  Their work is lovely, but I want the quilts I make to be completely made by me.  And my friends. Now if I owned a longarm, I'd use it for sure.  I just don't want someone else to do it.  Just my little quirk.

If you'd like to visit lots of WOW posts pop on over to Esther's blog where she hostesses this weekly event.

WOW = Working On Wednesday

I should have said assembling packages yesterday.  I gave a few gals a start! Today I'm assembling rows, 8 of 19 so far.  I don't have all my blocks yet, as 2/7 of this quilt is in the mail on the way to me.  I won't attach the rows to each other until I have them all made, in case I want to switch things up.

I love, love, love this quilt!  Can't wait to get it all together.  By the way, the pattern is called Across the Spectrum, and the original in McCall's Quilting, Jan/Feb 2011, was put together in rainbow or color spectrum style.  I love it scrappy.  To ensure it is really random, the only thing I'm doing is making sure no two blocks identical are next to each other.  There are very few identical fabrics in this quilt so far.  I'm just taking a solid and a criss-cross and sewing them together, however they come.  What fun!

ACROSS THE SPECTRUM BLOCKS ASSEMBLED

Here we are.  Everything has been put into seven stacks, one for each of us.

Oops! I almost forgot to make 7 signature squares.  We could do them with ink, embroidery, stamps, etc. so I chose to use my stamp.

Six packages, ready to stuff into their mailing envelopes.

These blocks were so fun, but I feel like "check" "done" too!

ACROSS THE SPECTRUM BLOCKS FINISHED!

Yippie!  I finished on time.  These are all my Spectrum blocks.  For each of seven in the swap we cut one FQ into seven 5" squares, x 23 FQs, and likewise, with each of 23 FQs we made seven criss-cross blocks.  All 46 fabrics had to be unique.  This shows all my piles of seven, spread out on my cutting table.  More on this swap soon.

WOW = Working On Wednesday

Esther Aliu. one of my favorite designers, posts a WOW every Wednesday.  Gals link to it with their WIP (Work in progress) On Wednesday.  So, here I go.

This week I'm working on criss-cross blocks for a swap (yes, another one!).  This is a rather labor-intensive swap, involving 40 some FQs.  Half are cut into 5" squares to swap, and half are made into these 4.5" finished size Criss-Cross blocks (those little squares are .75").  It's great fun, and we will have all the squares necessary to make the quilt top when finished.  Seven of us are making 7 blocks from each FQ.  Hopefully there will be very few, if any, duplicates.  We are using CW fabrics and Kona Cream.  Love it!  Seven of us will end up with awesome quilts.  This idea was in the Jan./Feb. 2011 issue of McCall's Quilting.  It was all set up for 7 quilters to do the swap.  Who could resist?

My June Taylor shape cuts are really getting a work out this week with these blocks! Notice, I've marked where I need to cut with tape, so I don't have to keep adding by 1.25"!

We gave it 9 months considering you have to come up with the 40 something FQs and then make the tons of blocks.  Due to my machine being in the shop most of the spring, and my eye having issues ever since, I'm running close to the deadline, but I'll make it!