I’m so excited to announce a fun project I’ve been working on with Patty over at Elm Street Quilts. We have been planning a Quilt Along slated to start in January 2019 and we will be hand piecing all of the blocks! So fun!
Patty shares my love of hand work and we thought it would be fun to share the love with you guys! Since I posted this video over a ago, I have had quite a few people emailing me wanting to know more about the technique.
I love hand piecing for a lot of reasons–it’s portable, it’s meditative, and you get quick “wins” along the way, as you complete each unit. It blessedly doesn’t rely on any real technology, not even electricity, which I find so refreshing these days. I’d love to share it with more people and I hope that you will join us!
How It Works
The quilt is a nine block sampler. (Anyone can sew nine blocks, right?) There are four “skill builder” basic blocks (four patch, half square triangle, flying geese, and quarter square triangle) that we will cover in the first four weeks, and then we will use those basic block skills to create another five blocks that are a little bit more interesting. Once we’ve got the nine blocks, there will be a couple options for how to lay the quilt out and sew it together. Easy Peasy.
Don’t know how to hand sew? No problem! That’s exactly why we are doing this–to introduce this fun, meditative skill to more people. We will walk you through everything, and at a just block a week, you should have no problem keeping up (and if you don’t, no problem!).
Here are just some of the things that you will learn:
- The notions you need to get started (you probably already own all of them)
- How to mark stitching lines
- How to make a “quilter’s knot”
- How to do the “running stitch”
- How to knot at the end of a stitching line
- How to make basic blocks
- How to join blocks together
Spoiler: None of it is hard. At all.
Prizes, Prizes, Prizes
One of the many fun things about this quilt along is that we have a bunch of awesome sponsors who have all contributed wonderful prizes. These are all companies that we know and love and create fabulous products that make sewing so enjoyable. We will be giving away weekly prizes as people complete blocks, and there will be a big giveaway at the end. More details on that soon–but trust me, these are great prizes!
How Do I Sign Up?
The Hand Pieced Quilt Along will start in January, and if you want to make sure that you don’t miss it–we’ve created a Hand Pieced Quilt Along Facebook Group that you can join to be reminded of new posts as they go up, along with ability to sew along, post pictures, and chat about our experiences as we build this quilt together. And you can also stay in the loop by signing up for email newsletter notifications.
We will give you more details as we get closer (including the full quilt reveal!). Here’s another hint: you can probably make this whole quilt with fabric you already own, especially from that overflowing scrap basket!
We hope that you will join us–so don’t forget to join the Facebook Group and sign up for the newsletter.
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