The Slowest Quilt Ever

This summer I decided to make a scrap quilt with all the leftover bits of fabric I have leftover from previous projects. I can’t stand to throw away a six inch by 12 inch piece of fabric, when I know that EVENTUALLY I can use it.

This summer was eventually. I designed a pattern that uses tiny slightly wonky stars so that perfection is not an issue. I calculated that I needed 180 3 1/2 inch stars, but when I went to assemble the stars into bigger squares I discovered I needed 20 more tiny stars.

Making each tiny star is exhausting. They each use 17 little bits of fabric, which all must be cut, sewn, ironed and then squared up, meaning cut again. That’s 3400 pieces of fabric.

After a couple of months of that I finally started assembling the star squares into nine patch blocks with the stars making up five of the nine blocks and plain white material as the other four. That’s 800 more squares. More cutting, sewing and ironing, but so much faster than the tiny squares.

To get an idea of the pattern I had designed I laid out the nine patches on a design wall board. I will be adding plain white blocks between the nine patches. Only 30 more squares for that. More cutting, sewing and ironing.

I would have felt happier about my progress if I did not have to double back to making 20 more tiny star squares. Somehow having to do more of the tedious cutting and sewing makes me crazy, when I thought I was done with it.

All this and I will still have to design a border and back and then get it quilted. This project will officially be my slowest one ever. I pray I like it when it’s done.