From This Valley

I finished my Luxe in Bloom Churn Dash! I really like this quilt. I love the colors, the busy-ness, and the prints that you wouldn't think work together, but go together perfectly.

I've decided to name this quilt From This Valley, which is a song by the Civil Wars. This song is one of my favorites. It's also a very significant song for me - it was on repeat for months after my Mom died.

For this quilt I used almost all the prints from Luxe in Bloom by Sarah Watson, and it is pieced in Aurifil 2024. It finishes 80x72. The design is my own, using traditional churn dash blocks.

Easy-Peasy 9 Patch

I've said before that I've never actually taken a piecing class, and that I'm self-taught. So basically, I have no idea how everyone else does this, but I wanted to share with you how I do my 9-patch blocks.

I've used this technique with Georgia on My Mind, as well as my current WIP, the Luxe in Bloom churn dash.

Start with your 9 squares, and lay them out how you want them in the final block.

Lay the middle column on top of the first column, right sides together, and chain piece per usual. DO NOT cut these pieces apart!

Open your top pair of squares, and put the top square of the third column on the middle column square, and chain piece that last column onto the first two.

Just keep it goin'...

Then you're left with a half-finished block that you can toss around and not worry about the pieces getting mixed up. I do it like this so I can do a mess-load of blocks together, assembly-line style!

Toss them in a pile together, no worries!

Once you've pieced a mess-load of blocks (I usually do ten or so at a time) then you can press the seams in alternating directions.

These are all pressed and folded into thirds, ready for the last two seams!

Nest the seams, don't worry about clipping the threads from the chain piecing, and finish the block.

All done! When I'm on a roll with these, I can typically do ten-ish in about two hours.

Does anyone (or everyone?) else do it like this? I really have no idea if this is helpful or not, and I'm sure it's not groundbreaking or anything. What do you think?

Ready to Piece!

I finished my Luxe in Bloom blocks the other day, and couldn't wait to put them up on the design wall to see what the finished quilt will look like. I've rearranged them quite a bit since then, so I'm going to wait to show you until I figure out how I like it.

In the meantime, enjoy these! (The colors in these pictures are waaaaay off. I took them in the middle of the night! Yay artificial lighting!)

Gruntwork

There are always parts of quilting/specific projects that are not a favorite. I've mentioned before that pressing is not something I particularly love, but there is definitely something waaaaaaaay worse.

Trimming HSTs.

I hate it. I dread it. I've tried different methods, different rulers, etc, but the bottom line is that it has to get done one way or the other. No shortcuts. Just get it done, preferably in small batches.

At least the finished product is worth it!

Luxe in Bloom Progress!

I've actually made a lot of progress on Luxe in Bloom, but since the last couple posts were not project-related, I'll give you some pretty pictures of my block-prep method that I used to get ready to piece these puppies.

I cut all my fabric at once, to make sure that 1) I had enough, and 2) that when I put the blocks together I'd be able to distribute the colors/prints/values evenly.

After everything was cut, I spread out all of the cut pieces and used my tried-and-true paper plates to organize the blocks.

Ready to stitch!

Luxe in Bloom

As I mentioned yesterday, I've started a new quilt. This one came sort of out of the blue, and jumped the queue of several others that have been waiting in the wings for awhile.

I love Luxe in Bloom. I think it's one of my favorite lines in a long time. I love how you can look at these prints individually and it seems like they don't relate at all, but they work so perfectly together. I've used this line several times when making bags and have used some of the blender-y prints in Sunshine Daydream and Georgia on My Mind.

So. I wanted to take this line and make a conglomeration-of-color type quilt, kind of clashy and busy. I sat down with my sketchbook and a calculator and did math. Lots of math. And then some more math. And then I would correct that math, and then do some more. I'm not so good at the math...

After double and triple checking, I did a couple of 'prototype' blocks. They worked! So exciting :-)

I've actually gotten a lot done on this quilt, and I'll be sharing more soon, obvs. I also noticed that a few days after I started, churn dash blocks are showing up everywhere in blogland! Crazy how we think alike...