I signed up for a quilt along a few weeks back. Me being me, I’m making the pattern but going off in my own direction a bit. It means that I had to figure out some stuff in the pattern so that I could do the quilt the way I want to do it. That’s fine, I’m used to doing this and I knew it would take a little time.

I did some math, I did some cutting, I did some sewing, then there was more math, more cutting, more sewing, more cutting and finally with a little more math and a little more sewing I had pieced one block. Ok that’s good. It was my proof of concept and it turned out nice enough that I’ll be using it in the finished quilt. Took me 2.5 days to make that first block and I though oh my land, at this rate, making the large quilt (which needs 18 blocks) is just going to be way more than I can manage.

That’s ok though, the lap size quilt only needs 8 blocks and that will just have to do. Maybe add some borders, I mean she says that in the pattern, that if you want the lap to be bigger you could add some borders. Ok I have a plan.

Got home this past weekend and started on the second block. I hadn’t made enough notes on the first one, so there was still some math, some cutting and a lot of sewing, but the second block only took about a day to put together. Ok that’s pretty spiffy. Definite improvement and I only made 2 mistakes that I had to rip out. Ok. Love the second block so much. Started the 3rd block.

Something clicked on the third block. I could see it in my head. I understood what I was cutting pieces to do. I was also fingering out how to use next steps in the block as my leaders and enders. If the machine was sewing, I wanted it to all be productive sewing on this project if I could swing it. I always wanted to be more conservative about my ironing and cutting work so that I wasn’t spending a lot of time up and down from the machine. Ok good. Third block took about 3 hours. That’s a huge improvement over 2.5 days!!!

At this point I looked at my fabric and thought, I can do the bed sized quilt. Even at 3 hours a block, 18 blocks isn’t that bad (not like 2.5 days per block). So I dived into block 4. I now had a process where I stacked my fabric to make the sections of the block in order without having to sort through all the pieces every time. Doing good. Made one mistake but it was an easy fix. Block 4 took 2.5 hours. MORE improvement!

I made a clear list of what I was cutting from the background fat quarter and leapt on blocks 5 and 6 – this time, sewed right through the block with no mistakes! Did it in 2 hours each! The system is working!!!

I took a break for dinner and decided I’d make one more block Sunday night. I put the system right to work and what do you know? Blocks 7 and 8 are done at a pace of 1.5 hours each!! I am now 100% on board with the big quilt and the eighteen blocks. I can do this. The system is working.

I don’t think I can get much faster than 1.5 hours per block. The steps are streamlined, all my pieces are staged in the right order and it’s a 20″ block so I think that’s about the best I can do but that is soooooo much better than two and a half days per block. I’m so jazzed. I much prefer big quilts that I can put on my bed, and I liked the big quilt in this pattern from the beginning, I just wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

I always do better when I have a system. I am sure this is bleed over from my day job, being an Industrial Engineer, we are all about having a production system. I do this naturally and it really has an impact on my quilting. I’m really excited about this project, I think it’s going to be absolutely stunning when it’s done. 10 more blocks then the assembly can begin! I might get a lot of them done next weekend!!