Block of the Month

Quilt stores over here have a great marketing scheme called 'Block of the Month'.  Each year they come up with a design, you pay a monthly subscription and they give you a pattern and each month send you the materials for a block.  It's great for their cashflow and it's a really good way of buying quilting fabric which is quite expensive if you pay up front for a whole quilt's worth.

Anyway, I'm not doing one.

Well I am, but not like that, I just stole the name.

So to get on with it I'll tell you a sad story.  On December 17 2013 I sent off for this fabric bundle to make a 70th birthday quilt for Dad.

Needless to say, when it arrived several weeks later it was hastily shoved into the bottom of a box with no plans ever to remove it.

I have decided that this year I will make the quilt as a sort of monthly act of remembrance and contemplation, I think I'm ready to do it now in a positive way.  I'm going to go with the design I had originally planned based on Elizabeth Hartman's Birdbath quilt from her book, The Practical Guide to Patchwork...

And using improv techniques inspired by Jacqui Gering, particularly the wonky log cabins tutorial on her website, Tallgrass Prairie Studio.

My working title is Wonky Wheels and here are the first 2 block centres completed today.

They're not looking too wonky right now but I think when I've put them into straight cabins they should be just a little bit annoyingly skiwiff, which is what I'm going for.

I'm planning to make 20 blocks for a 4 by 5 foot lap quilt so that's 2 block centres per month for 10 months, then 2 months to complete the cabins and sew it all together.  It should be doable but we shall see, someone used to say 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' and I'm sure if you can get there in a hand basket a quilt will do just as well.