Quilt Along

My Mom and I are participating in a quilt along put on by one of my favorite craft blogs, Oh, Fransson! I have made several quilts before but I have never followed any directions or a pattern and I never had any idea what I was doing. I just kind of made it up as I went along. And I am terrible at following directions. So this is really different for me! Mom has never made a quilt before, but she is really good at following directions. So this is a challenge for both of us!

I decided to try and use some fabric I had in my stash, instead of buying all new fabric. I thought it might make Aaron happy :) Tragically, I have not stopped buying fabric, so I don't think it made a difference. But, I am happy to use these cute 30's inspired prints I got last year for Mother's Day. I did have to buy more to get the 12 different fabrics I needed for the pattern, but these are the ones I had:


The cutting directions were amazingly precise and efficient. Which is the opposite of how I usually do it which is likely in the most backwards and wasteful way possible. It was very hard for me to follow the cutting instructions and I messed up several times (and cut my finger once and had to start over because I got blood on my fabric) but I managed to get it all cut out in two evenings and I didn't run out of fabric! Success! There are 12 different patters matched up into 6 pairs. Oh, Fransson! had a great idea to organize all the different pieces of fabric using a labled grid on cardstock. Very handy because there were quite a few different pieces:


Mom got all her fabrics cut out and we got together last Saturday to start sewing. I had my craft room set up so we could both sew together. It worked so good! We also had both girls in with us, Avery playing on the floor and Ella doing her own crafts. It was really really fun!!!

Even though she had never quilted before Mom did a great job!

I didn't do so bad myself :)

The worst part about quilting is the endless ironing! I wished we had two irons because we had to take turns. Next time we get together I think we will have two going to make it faster. Although we did use the waiting time to play with cute babies, so it wasn't all bad :)


Here is my set of Block 1:

Mom's set of Block 1 - I am wildly jealous of her fabrics, we had so much fun picking them out at the fabric store! I think the colors are beautiful and the tree fabric is definitely my favorite, I am going to have to pick some of that up for me!

There were only directions for blocks 1 and 2, but we were on a roll so we decided to keep going and we sewed 1, 2, 3, and 4!

Mom's blocks:

My blocks (I don't know why the angle is so weird here):


Now Mom is in Hawaii and I am in Alaska. It is going to be hard to keep from finishing up the piecing while she is gone. I might have to start a new project to cheer me up. Sewing is not as good as the beach, but it is better than nothing!!!