Block of the Month: August, September, and October

This year I’m sewing along with Amy Gibson from Stitchery Dickory Dock. A bunch of other talented seamsters and I have joined up to make a quilt using Craftsy’s 2012 Block of the Month class. Here’s a reflection on my efforts to sew well.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to say I’ve completed all of the Craftsy 2012 Block of the Month squares before the little one’s arrival.  Now, there’s still lots to do to finish the quilt.  The November and December class lessons are devoted to “The Big Finish”:  assembling, basting, quilting, squaring up, and binding.  I don’t think I have the energy to tackle those steps right now (though who’s to say how my “nesting urge” will present itself?!).  But, I also decided I’d like this quilt to belong to any daughter I might have, and you guys have voted for this baby to be a boy, so perhaps I have a lot more time before the quilt needs to be finished anyway?!  (That said, the girl vote has made a big comeback recently, so you never know!)

Regardless, let’s get on to the new quilt squares!

In the August class we pieced together stars.  First, we made an Ohio star block…

…and then we made a double star block.

In the September class we tackled curved piecing.  Though curved piecing in quilting sounded complicated to me, I actually enjoyed seeing how the pieces fit together to make neat little squares.  First we made a chain block…

…and then we made a Cleopatra’s puzzle block.

Finally, in October it was time to learn paper piecing.  Now, I will admit that I put this lesson off for a very long time.  Up through the September blocks, I was alternating between sewing blocks and sewing garments, as I explained in my last Block of the Month post.  But, paper piecing made me nervous.  I imagined cutting tons of crazy shapes out of paper, then carefully cutting those same shapes again out of fabric, and then finally having to sew all the little bits together.  Boy, was I wrong!  I did have to cut more paper than in any other class, but it was only eight 6+” by 6+” squares for the two blocks.  The fabric pieces could be cut willy nilly – no precision needed!  It was all very easy, and I can see how the technique could make for endless designs.  I’m now totally sold on paper piecing!  Anyway, in this particular class we made a friendship circle block…

…and then we made a circle of geese block.

And, that’s it!  All twenty blocks are now finished!  The other fourteen are below in the order that they were made. I wrote about making them here, here, and here.

Now I just need to work on the layout.  My initial idea is something like this one:

I was going for a semi-diagonal-rainbow-order layout with no two squares from the same class sharing a side with each other.  I like it, but we shall see if things change once I start working with the actual squares.  As with the paper piecing and many of the other squares I’ve made for this class, I hope the next steps also prove to be easier than I currently imagine them to be!

Also, Craftsy recently announced their 2014 Craftsy Block Of The Month class.  It’s free, just like the 2012 class and 2013 class, so I signed up.  I won’t have time to start on it just yet (or likely any time this year, honestly, since I already have two other quilts in mind that I want to make first!), but if any of you have been bit by the quilting bug, getting started now means you’ll actually be sewing along with a whole slew of other quilters.  I think that sounds like fun!