I do love a great Quilt-A-Long and Sandra’s was one of the first I participated in. Year after year, I have joined in and am always in love with the quilt by the quilt party in July. We have been moving, well really integrating, things we own that we never moved up from Massachusetts to Maine. We no longer have a place there (yes I am sad), but being in one place is right for us. So, this is the first thing I have worked on since the move, and I am so excited to share my progress!
My Prior QALs with Sandra
I met Sandra in 2017 (wow 7 years ago) in the 2017 New Quilt Bloggers Group. As a new follower, I enjoyed her work and got sucked into my first internet QAL. I loved this Free Fall QAL and have participated in all of them since then! Here is a brief tour of the past QAL quilts.
Fabric Choices
I had a tough time narrowing down my choices, but here is what I came up with. You will see a second gold piece on the far right of the picture. I miscut the first, so that is the one that will be in the quilt…sometimes we are not in charge and plans get altered. Also, I forgot my first fabric was ombre, until I started working on it. Again, I stuck with the plan.
Week 1 Sewing
This is such a fun easy step, I didn’t take any process pictures. But let’s take a look at where I am. I love the ombre so far, but think it will not work in the smaller part of the quilt, so another navy may be substituted. Excuse the piles…they are a little higher than normal!
Week 2 Sewing
I love this and the way it is turning out. The sun changed these colors a bit as it is closer to the colors in the first picture and it really faded the gold. I did sew what I could together Rows 1,2,3, and 6; and now must find a blue that will work against the teal for the medium stars.
Here is my original plan. You can see the ombre will have more trouble next to the teal. Back to EQ to “audition” a change. I finally put the ombre fabric in which really helps to show you how things will look. None of the other fabrics are the exact ones I am using, but close enough to give me a good idea.
Here is substituting a navy for the ombre. I like that better and think I will recut those pieces. Next week we work on the smallest of the stars…I am up for the challenge!
The QAL Information
Here are links to Sandra’s posts and the schedule. Its still plenty early to jump in on the QAL!
April 3 – QAL Kick-off – Sponsors and Schedule
April 10 – Fabric requirements/discussion
April 17 – Cutting instructions
April 24 – Make the giant (gold) star points (mine are orange and ombre teal->navy)
May 1 – Make the large (violet) star points. (gold and navy) <===I am here
May 8 – Make the small (pale yellow) stars and parts of the small (gold) centre star.
May 15 – Make the medium (blue/violet prints) stars. (teal/navy)
May 22 – Assemble the top
June 15 – Quilt Parade opens
June 22 – Winners announced
Coming Up on My Blog
I am mixing sewing and integrating things into our house in Maine. So the sewing will be slow but I have a lot of quilt tops that could make it to finished…fingers crossed.
Purple Passion – almost done quilting
Fire and Rain
Yoga 2
2 Charity Quilts
Diatom
Nice progress Kathleen, love your fabric choices!
Looks like good progress and I like the ombre fabric around the outside. Auditioning in EQ8 is smart!
The ombre is working great for the background, Kathleen! I think you got that at Quilt Cove! I hope the integration continues to get easier and easier.
It’s coming together very nicely!
You are a good girl .. you followed the pattern .. from big to small, I did the other way … because I had no idea of the fabrics to take for the big pieces… it develops – so I need to start at the little ones. Your solution is very good !!! I love the blue, turquoise and orange! vibrant :-))) full of power
I like the color scheme that you’ve chosen, Kathleen! And I really like that ombre on the outside! What a fun project! :)
Kathleen great progress. I have such a hard time with the selection of fabrics! You have that nailed!!