There’s been a lot going on in the last week — several medical appointments (nothing major) and a particularly busy work schedule that’s meant working from home a couple evenings on top of the usual life-with-two-small-kids stuff. When that happens, sewing suffers. It’s just the way things go, right?
Nonetheless, I’ve gotten a couple things done.
I’ve started cutting fabric in preparation of the upcoming Long Time Gone sew-along that starts on March 15. I’m pretty excited about this one! I’ve never made a scrappy quilt or participated in a sew-along. But wow, this is going to be a beast of a quilt — there are 16 different blocks, and each of those has anywhere from a few to 100+ pieces, and each block is used anywhere from 1-10+ times, and then toss in filler blocks and sashing.
Bottom line is that there are a lot — like, SERIOUSLY A LOT — of pieces in this quilt. But I’ve cut 4 blocks so far, and if I can keep up the pace I might actually get all the cutting done before the sew-along officially starts. That will be a huge help when it comes to staying on track once sewing begins.
I’m also working on a secret sewing project that’s due right before Long Time Gone starts up — so whew, that timing works out well. I’m using the 5 shades of blue seen above, which arrived in the mail late last week. I was hitting a brick wall trying to work out the math for this quilt on the computer so over the weekend, I cut a bunch of colored paper strips to represent all the colors and piece sizes I need. After a few minutes of laying them out and shifting things around, I was finally able to work out the sizes and order I need.
Sometimes you just have to go back to basics!
(Linking up with Let’s Bee Social from Sew Fresh Quilts)
It really can be hard to figure out the yardage needed sometimes. Good luck keeping up the prep work for the Long Time Gone quilt along and I look forward to seeing what the blues turn into. 🙂
The funny part was that figuring out yardage wasn’t an issue — it was figuring out how to evenly distribute the 5 colors in 5 sizes across 15 blocks! It felt like some sort of quilting-meets-sudoku challenge.
Good luck with the sew-along – wow that’s a lot of pieces. It will be wonderful once finished.
Thanks Abigail! I’m one part intimidated and one part psyched!
You are sewing like a fiend this year!