Graph Paper is Kind of Fun

Even if the quilt graphing that accompanies it makes my head hurt.  Haha.  Good evening ladies and gentleman, my name is Jessica and when I've got my mind set on a project, I attack it with such single-minded focus that I let everything else fall to the wayside in my efforts to get it done.  Because mama gets it done!  Hahaha. 

 

Today's project was finishing up Sophie's quilt top.  And boy was it a project!  I didn't intend to finish everything tonight, but once I graphed everything out and got started, I was on too much of a roll to let it go.  The graphing was kind of fun and kind of mind-scrambling all at the same time.  Kind of like putting together a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure puzzle.  Made even more exciting by the fact that I almost ran out fabric before I was done.  I literally cobbled together every last scrap I could find to fill in the background on the very LAST mega-block.  I can't even tell you how happy I was to see that I wouldn't need to put the project on hold semi-permanently while I ordered more fabric online and waited for it to come in the mail!!!  THAT would have been tragic. 

There's no real way to give an accurate tutorial of how I pieced everything together, but a rough outline of what I did would be as follows: 

1.) Used masking tape on my design board to mark off the size quilt I wanted to make {56" squared, which is basically the same size as Ethan and Grace's baptism quilts -- technically I think theirs are 54" squared, but they may have shrunk a bit from washing},

2.)  Arranged the blocks according to my fancy within the square,

3.) Filled in a few blank spaces by creating more Wonky Stars,

4.) Used masking tape to group the original blocks into Mega-Blocks,

5.) Graphed the original blocks and Mega-Blocks out to scale (using the actual measurements of the original blocks) in order to determine what sizes I'd need to cut for the background fabric,

6.) Cut background fabric and pieced the Mega-Blocks together after carefully going over the measurements on graph paper. 

 

 Mega-Block 1

 Mega-Block 2

 Mega-Block 3

Mega-Block 4

 Mega-Block 5

 

 Mega-Block 6

 

 Mega-Block 7

Mega-Block 8

 Mega-Block 9

 

 Mega-Block 10 -- with the hodge-podged background fabric piecing

Suffice it to say, the kids were left to their own devices for a few hours while I hyper-focused on the task at hand.  Lots of TV was watched, the pantry was raided a few times over, Alex (and Jane) spent WAY too much time on the computer, and dinner was relegated to "Cereal/Leftover Night" VERY early on in the afternoon.  I got those Mega-Blocks done, though, and I can always be responsible tomorrow!  Haha.  It did make me feel like it was all worth it, however, when Sophie came around the corner this evening and saw the quilt all together for the first time up on the board and exclaimed, {unprompted, I might add} "It looks AWESOME, mom!"  :) 

Now all that's left is to SEW the Mega-Blocks together and figure out the backing.  Then it's on to quilting and binding and I'll be done!