In the Beginning, There was Fabric

Let the quilting commence.

First I gathered buckets of fabric from skua, which was fun because I picked everything from strawberry pajama pants to old Hawaiian shirts and geometric patterned pillow cases. I even found some gnome, camouflage frog and sea turtle fabric scraps in the craft room. After that, I had to cut hundreds (yes hundreds) of 4-7/8" x 4-7/8" squares (why not 5"?), and then, cut all of those in half into triangles.


THEN, the triangles are sorted by color, arranged via the pattern above and sewn together, two of the new squares sewn together and the two sewn to the other two, creating one big quilted square. After that, seven quilted squares are sewn together to create the first line of the quilt and finally seven lines sewn together to make up the majority of the quilt. Whew.




Pretty fabric squares!

Three piles became six.
The original pattern is based on having specific red and blue fabrics, so because mine is really a "crazy quilt" (as my Grandma informed me) and I'm using all sorts of fabric, I did my best to separate them by color and into light, medium and dark categories.


Six piles became nine.

My first square!

When I put this first square together, I thought to myself,
"Hmm...I don't know, this might end up being the ugliest quilt ever."
Now that the lines are coming together, I absolutely love it.

Wahoo! The first two lines!

A closer view!
Now I simply have to sustain the patience I've acquired and carry on with the process. Presently it takes me about an hour and a half to sew together one line of seven squares. At that rate, I should definitely be able to finish by the end of the season.

I have yet to decide if I will actually quilt the quilt, which is the overlaying stitching that connects the quilted squares to the back, but I've been thinking some quilted Antarctic continents might be nice.