City Sampler

I can't believe my first "finish" of the year is my #100Blocks#100 Days City Sampler.  A huge thank you to  Sweet Little Pretties and Sunflower Stitcheries for hosting the #100BlocksFinished sew-along.  I have no doubt it's the only reason I have this flimsy!  I was this close to making the deadline but ultimately it slipped to the next day.  No regrets - I am so thrilled to have this one done.

This has been my mantra since I started this project.  You have to know I LOVE to quilt but I like to keep things real here and this quilt has already had more than it's share of "joyous" moments.  Granted I procrastinated a bit and only left myself two weeks to get the top together but what a race to the end it was...

I played with a bunch of different color schemes for the sashing but decided to sew from my stash and go with this Kaffe Fasset shot cotton in Smoky.  I streamlined the process by cutting my vertical sashing from strip sets.  The fun started when I realized the yardage and cutting instructions were for an 8x8 grid.  Seriously Tula,  why would I make 100 blocks and then only use 64 of them in my quilt!?!  I did some math and decided I'd have more than enough fabric to make a 10x10 version.  Keep Going!

That was until I cut a whole bunch of my horizontal strips at 8" rather than 8 1/2".  See the stack on top, all 1/2" too short.  More math - it's going to be close!  In the end I had 4" to spare.  A little too close for comfort especially with only 3 days left to the deadline.  Keep Going!

There's a lot of monotony sewing blocks and sashing strips together to make rows.  I finally got to watch the Gillmore Girls revival and binged on a whole season of the new Netflix original Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events - perhaps a poor choice when I was hoping for a happy ending;-)  As expected the gridlock layout was a bit more challenging than traditional straight sashing.  My first attempt at joining two rows resulted in some rather wonky crosses...  not at all the look I was going for.

I found that I was able to get good results by matching the vertical stripes and pinning then adding another pin between each intersection.  It would have bugged me forever - I ripped the first 2 rows and redid them.  Add another hour to the fun but Keep Going until finally...

finally, I reached the final seam.  The heavens sang, the angels wept, and the rain held off just long enough for me to race outside and shoot some pictures.  It's been a long haul but I'm already thinking about how I'm going to quilt it.  The fun never stops;-)

If you're thinking you missed the boat on this one there's still hope.  Angie at GnomeAngel is hosting another round, #100Days100Blocks2017 kicking off in May.  I know I've moaned & groaned a lot about this one but the challenge truly did keep me motivated and I'm thrilled with the finished quilt.  Start planning now if you want to join the party!

Celebrating with this week's Finish it Up Friday by Crazy Mom Quilts.

100 Days 100 Blocks

Truth be told I'm not really a joiner.  Swaps, sew-alongs and such really aren't my thing but when Instagram started lighting up with my friends joining #100Days100Blocks I thought this might be just the thing to jump-start my fall sewing.  Anyone reading this probably already knows all the details but you can find out more from the fabulous hostesses, Sweet Little Pretties, Gnome Angel and Sunflower Stitcheries.

The challenge is to make all 100 blocks from Tula Pink's City Sampler book by Thanksgiving.  This is a perfect project for my carefully hoarded curated Tula stash but I'm also mixing in my beloved shot cottons and some other faves.  For now I've been sticking somewhat to the colorations and fabrics in the book but I suspect that will evolve as I go.

So far the blocks haven't been difficult but they are small, only 6" finished.  There are lots of tiny pieces to cut so this is definitely the time to break out the revolving rotary mat if you have one!  I've found it easier to strip piece some of the units before cutting them to size.

I'm also eternally grateful for the Happy Zombie Block Buddies Aimee and I made on retreat.  I hadn't used them much but they are perfect for keeping track of all these little pieces and staying organized.

And here is the proverbial first step...  Block 1.

Do you prefer to quilt with a crowd or do your own thing?