Hi Everyone!  Took a little time off to film 2 brand new videos featuring the Singer Quantum Stylist 9960!!  I never offered 2 new videos at once, so that was another first for me!!  If you missed them and want to catch up, they’re in this article.

So now on to another quick quilt progress update!!  Day 4 was less about cutting and sewing and more about planning out the rest of the quilt.  I had a plan going into the quilt, but at a certain point of “over planning” I just dove in.  I was driving myself crazy with calculations and it was taking all the fun out of it.  To simplify things to go forward, I needed to sort out 2 things:

1.  I needed to figure out how to add more width to the center portion of the quilt.

I knew I wanted a designated top surface to the quilt.  This way, it’s super easy to make the bed and I  could use that as a design element.  I ended up adding 2 extra rows of 3″ strips to each side of the quilt.  This gave me close to the dimensions I wanted.Here’s how it looks by adding the 2 extra 3″ strips to each side.  It just framed it out nicely without looking like it didn’t belong there, to me.  Keep in mind this is my first quilt (first rodeo) so I’m winging it.  I’m not following a pattern (which was suggested).  I’m making it up as I go along (insert laugh).  So….it’s been a bit of an adventure.  

2.  Next…..I needed to figure out the 3 sides of the quilt.  The portion that hangs down on the 3 sides of the bed.

To figure out the sides of the quilt, I totally threw out my first idea.  I had planned to just keep moving outward with long 3″ strips, but that seemed like taking the easy way out.  So while playing around laying out different fabric combinations, I came up with an idea that I loved!!  I turned the 3″ strips perpendicular to the top portion so they would be vertically hanging down on the sides.  To accomplish this plan I cut 3 3″ strips of each of the 6 fabrics.  Since each print was 2 yards in length, that would give me 4 18″ sections to cut and resew together for each of the 3 sides.  The length of the quilt is 78″ so I will need to add 2 more 3″ strips to each side.  I know it seems complicated, but it really wasn’t.  It was however, a lot of sewing some very long seams.  Luckily my Singer L-500 with the dual feed sewed each seam like a champ!!

Although each of the 3 side panels ( sides and bottom)  are sewn together, I haven’t cut them into 18″ sections yet to reassemble each into sides for the quilt.  After that, I will need to figure out the lower corners of the quilt, so I will still have a bit more planning to do.  I hope you’re enjoying following along with my progress as much as I’m enjoying this process.