Oh Dear… I’ve Found Another Squirrel Down a Rabbit Hole

I know, very mixed metaphors….

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a new Quilt Along.  It is the Wensleydale Quilt by Jen Kingwell and is hosted by Quilted Chicken.  I’ve had the book and foundation papers for a few years and this was just the encouragement I needed to make a start.

The Quilted Chicken has a YouTube channel and a few years ago she shared her ingenious method to cut fabric for this quilt that is very efficient.  There are 60 blocks in the quilt and she cuts 60 widths of fabric by 6 1/4” strips.  She then shares how to cut the fabric to make one of each of the five sections of the block.  From those you can get a rather scrappy looking quilt, without having to pull hundreds of different fabrics.  There are 300 fabrics if you were to not repeat any in the quilt.

The Quilt Along only started on 2 November USA time, so I stumbled upon it at just the right time.  It runs for 6 weeks and the first week is to select your fabric.  Week 2 is to cut your fabric. Week 3 is to sort your fabrics into blocks and start sewing.  The next week is Thanksgiving, so a break or keep sewing.  Week 5 is to arrange your completed blocks and the final week is to stitch the quilt top together.  There are already a couple of YouTube posts about it and a PDF with the cutting instructions.  She has also set up a Facebook group to share your progress.

The timeframe sounds a bit ambitious, but will certainly give me the impetus to make some progress on this quilt that I really want to make, but just haven’t made the start to pull fabrics.

Today, I made that start.

And, that is 300 fabrics!!!!!

Why choose just 60 fabrics when you can pull 300?  Hopefully, there are no repeats.  I have removed a couple that snuck in.  Fingers crossed there are no more.

I kind of have it in the back of my head to add an extra column to make the quilt fit our bed a bit better.  That is only an extra ten blocks.  What is another 50 fabrics?  I think I’ll just start with the 60 blocks for now.

The fabrics are mainly reproduction ones, with a scattering of others, but it should still be colourful.  Many have come from a destash I came across a few years ago. Others have been in my stash for a very long time.  There are four I can date back to the 1980s when I first bought some “American Patchwork Fabric” when it was quite a new thing in Australia.

The cutting will probably take quite a bit longer with this variety of fabric, but I’m currently up to date, so I will take that as a win.

I know a few of you have the book and papers.  If you want to have a look or join in here are the details:

Website with link to Wensleydale Quilt along.

YouTube Channel