The quilt that has no name - part 1

This is the pattern of the quilt, from the book Fast Quilts from Fat Quarters

After the Knitting and Stitching Show last year I blogged about a quilt I wanted to make which, terribly, remains nameless.  I bought  all of my fabric at last year's show and in an effort to be super effective I immediately pre-treated it.  But as this is my first quilt, I decided to ease myself in gently by attempting the Japanese patchwork bag fist. I was glad I did, as it helped me with using a rotary cutter to cut layers of fabric accurately, which requires miles more pressure being placed on the ruler than I imagined. Or maybe I'm just getting weaker. 









Anyway, before I could even start cutting I spent a few hours making a full size cutting plan in mount board and covering it in sticky back plastic.  The book did helpfully suggest this as a useful tool, and it certainly kept me from destroying lots of fabric during the many, many hours of crossed eyes cutting that made up my month of March. 

The book calls for the cutting plan to be made to scale

There are over 1000 pieces in this quilt!

April and May were consumed with starting the construction process.  Playing around with different combinations of blocks is fun whilst also slightly frustrating to my inner OCD tendencies - when I can't quite get a perfectly balanced and pleasing spread of fabric shades, patterns and scales of pattern.

The centre star

Experimenting with block combinations

And since then the quilt has, again shamefully, not been given the priority it deserves.  The second half of 2016 has been so busy with relocating for a new job that the sewing machine desperately needs dusting down.  I'm determined this quilt will be finished by November 2017 - two years on from buying the fabric.  I'll need to write all of these new year's sewing plans down at this rate to keep track of my arbitrary deadlines!