My Next Big Quilt

Will I ever finish this quilt?  I can only say I have a partner who is very prolific (inspired_by_fiber is on IG) and I'm hoping that we can keep each other motivated and on schedule.  This is Sarah's Revival, the pattern is by Sue Garmon.

It was offered as a BOM but you can now purchase the whole pattern at one time. Full picture of the pattern that finishes at 80 x 80.  It has an interesting border pattern and there are techniques in this quilt that I have never tackled before so a learning curve is in my future.   I'll be posting a bit on my IG #grassrootsquilting and on my FB quilting page at facebook.com/grassrootsquiltstudio/

There are 36 blocks in the center of this and the applique pieces can be as skinny as a 1/4" so the scale of the print was important.  Here is my stack of fabrics that I'm starting with.  My photo is a bit orange but I have varied the tones.  I stayed away from the bright reds and burgundy tones.  I shopped for some and Kathy sent me another batch so I have a great variety so far.  1/3 yard will make 3 blocks so fabrics will be repeated.  

My background is RJR French Vanilla.  I decided to test out back basting for a few blocks.  Fabric was folded on the diagonal and I traced out the pattern in 4 sections.  Lots of other ways to get the pattern to the block, but so far, this is working well for me.

After 15 minutes of drawing, I had about 2 hours of back basting.  Maybe my stitches are too small and that's why the time? I think it's just that detailed and taking my time on this part of the prep work makes for a better finished result.

I made the commitment, I cut all the backgrounds and have started doing the edge stitching on this stack.  Here the colors of red look much closer to reality.

Here is my first finished block.  The plan was to start this in June and complete 4 blocks per month.  That was the BOM schedule and I honestly thought that was a good goal.  After timing myself and realizing it would take me almost 5 hours to do the needle turn applique, we have decided to plan for 2 blocks per month.  For scale, the block finishes at 10".  Time invested in each block 7-8 hours.

I will keep you posted on my progress. If you'd like to join in, let me know and I will share here. Kathy is on IG and if you don't follow her, you might take a peek at her feed, it's pretty fabulous. She constantly inspires me.

Keep stitching,

Sharon