simplicity 4076
simplicity 4228
simplicity 4132
simplicity 4589
simplicity 4112
simplicity 6543
simplicity 4306
simplicity 6559
simplicity 6521
butterick 4799
new look 6365
new look 6414
new look 6430
new look 6470

In three weeks I’m getting together with a bunch of women in my husband’s family to work on a quilt for my sister-in-law. I’m really excited about this! She has really great taste (or, I should say, tastes similar to mine) and picked out this Amy Butler pattern and the Amy Butler Belle fabrics. Actually, it was a toss up between the Amy Butler pattern and a traditional double wedding ring quilt… I opted for the Amy Butler pattern. The double wedding ring quilt is, I think, just a *bit* beyond my skill level and anyway so many of the fabrics have such a large print that I would hate to cut them up into such teeny tiny pieces. To make up for that laziness I think I’m going to try to embelish the Amy Butler quilt with a little bit of embroidery or beading on a few of the larger squares.

This will actually be my fourth cooperative-effort quilt, but it will be my first time as the leader and the first time with this group of women. I’m just a bit nervous about that. I think that the pattern is a great one for group work – not too difficult but challenging enough that it won’t be boring. Plus all of the possible color combinations will provide ample consulting opportunities for those who aren’t wanting to sew. I want to try to divide the work up in a way so that work is done quickly and efficiently, yet without the sweatshop atmosphere, and with the least fabric wastage. On one group quilt project we spent a good amount of time pulling fabric strips out of the trash and piecing them together in order to have enough fabric to finish the quilt border and binding. That’s an experience, although memorable, that I don’t wish to repeat.

So, to start with, are a few disagreements I have with the pattern:

1. Almost every square in the quilt is a different measurement, which means there aren’t very many interchangeable pieces and we can’t really use an assembly line.
2. Sewing small squares onto large squares will result in a *lot* of fabric wastage. I would like to do half the squares that way, half with a border sewn around the small squares.
3. The described method of attaching the small squares onto the large squares is too labor intensive and error prone. I’m going to use iron-on interfacing to simplify the process.
4. There are blank squares in the pattern that are actually NOT BLANK in the picture of the finished product

Here’s a list of tasks by priority:

1. fussy cut squares
2. cut large squares (or borders)
3. sew fussy cut squares to interfacing (where not using borders)
4. iron fussy cut squares to large squares (where not using borders)
5. sew fussy cut squares to large squares or borders
6. cut strips (maybe one strip from each fat quarter?)
7. piece vertical columns of strips
8. piece vertical columns of squares and strips together

I’m debating how we should divide up the work… one person do each task? Or one person work on each row of the quilt? So complicated!!!