Forever Quilting 4 You

Here I go again, being pushed out of my comfort zone! As part of
October 2023’s challenge I had to use the AccuQuilt fabric cutting
system, which is new to me. Let me start by letting you know that
I’m not a gadget or notions kind of gal, so this challenge was hard
for me to wrap my head around. When the LARGE AccuQuilt
boxes arrived at my house and I couldn’t even pick them up by
myself, my first thought was “how in the heck am I going to get
these into my house?!” Well, I did but I’ll spare you the details.

After months of the boxes sitting in my kitchen and me having to
walk around them every time I went into the kitchen, I finally
decided to at least open the boxes and find out what I was in for.
After taking everything out of the boxes, to my surprise it wasn’t
as bad as I thought it was going to be, so I neatly put everything
back in the boxes and said to myself (I talk to myself a lot…), “ok,
I’ll tackle this another day, but for now I first have to finish what
I’m currently working on before I start something new” (the nice
thing about talking to myself is that no one argues with me)!

Another month goes by, and I’m ready to get this show on the
road! It was suggested that I go to AccuQuilt.com to watch a few
videos, so I did, and it wasn’t bad. I then decided to go back and
review the Island Batik instructions that outlined the items that
need to be created each month. For this month’s challenge we
were to use the North Carolina Block.

So, I downloaded the instructions, and from what I read, I was pretty sure that I had everything I needed to complete this month’s challenge. Island
Batik wanted us to use a fall color theme so I went through my
Island Batik stash box to see what I could find to make this happen.

I was excited to find that our Island Batik leader, Natasha
Kieve, had sent me just what I needed… the Country Charm in
10” squares. This collection is a lovely assortment of fall colors. I
also found 2 yards of Storm/NOO9-BU1, which is a beautiful deep
blue, and 2 yards of Sky Dot/BE34-E1, a lovely light blue dot. I
also used Hexagon Orange Dot/11234021 from the Magenta
Dusk collection as a filler for the background.

With these wonderful fall-colored fabrics in hand I was ready to
start designing how I wanted the blocks to look. I downloaded a
few of the line drawings from the AccuQuilt website and started
coloring them to see how I could make the North Carolina Block a
reflection of me, to make it mine.

After I designed the blocks, I needed to figure out how many pieces of each color of fabric I needed to cut. Did I mention that there are 56 pieces in each
block, and I needed 9 blocks for what I decided to make? Thank
goodness for AccuQuilt!!

With 504 pieces cut I was ready to start sewing them together…
or so that’s what I thought. Now’s a good time to admit that in
addition to not being a fan of gadgets and notions I’m also not a
fan of working with small pieces of fabric. As a paper piecer
through and through the thought of sewing small, individual
pieces of fabric together really makes me really antsy. But I
pushed on and started laying out the fabric pieces for the first
block, then started to sew them together. I quickly realized that I’m
not doing as well as I had hoped, so I stopped and reevaluated
my process. I came up with the idea that if I starched the fabrics,
then pinned them together, then marked the ¼” seam allowance,
I’d do a better job of sewing them together. It worked!

You must be thinking to yourselves “that’s a lot of work!” Well, you aren’t
wrong! Let’s just say that this was a time-consuming process, and
what made it take even longer was the fact that I didn’t even think about chain-piecing the pieces together until the very last (9th ) block.
What was I thinking?! Or better yet, why did it take me so
long to figure out that chain piecing would have been faster?! I
chain piece my paper pieced patterns all the time, so why not
these little pieces of fabric?! Ugh!

So having finished all 9 blocks, I laid them out to see how my
design looked in fabric versus on paper. As I examined the layout,
I decided I needed to add some sashing in between the blocks.

Then I got this bright idea (like the ones I had in an earlier blog
post) to use up some of the leftover pieces that I had cut to add
some pizazz and interest to the quilt! Ha! Why not add more to my
plate?! I can see a tiny, little open space on my plate! Why do I do
this to myself? This is one of those times when I’m talking to
myself that I need to argue with myself, with an emphatic NO!!!
Alas, I found myself making 16 ¼” square triangle blocks that
when finished measured 2.25”. Oh my goodness! Seriously,
why?! The sashing and corner stone blocks added to the 12”
blocks, and now, all that is left is to add a border. Again with the
bright ideas, I decided to use up more of the leftover pieces that I
had previously cut to make the border more interesting. Again,
why?!!!

So, with the interesting borders added it’s finally finished. Well,
the top is finished, and now to the longarm to pull it all together,
and come to the end of the road!

Along with the Island Batik fabrics that I was given to use for this
challenge, I used one of my favorite Aurifil threads, a very light
lime green; in case you’ve forgotten, I never use matching thread.
Thanks, Aurifil for making such a great thread that blends in so
well with so many different fabrics.

Schmetz needles again saved the day while I run over pins often, most times my needle never brakes. Thank you Schmetz for a great product!

Clover pins are the only pins I use. They will bend before they brake or brake a needle.

Hobbs 80/20 batting was used for this quilt, as Hobbs is my
favorite batting. Thank you, Hobbs!

Accuquilt supplies the BOB, (Block on Board) for the North
Carolina Block. I should also add that I received an amazing
number of AccuQuilt products as I am new to this type of product.
Thank you AccuQuilt for the generous gift.

Quilting was done on my Nolting 24 Pro series, with matching
Glide thread.

The Quilting is done and I think it came out rather nice!

So, what did I learn during this month’s challenge?

First, trying something new is not the end of the world.
I learned that there is more than one way to cut fabric pieces for
my blocks – with AccuQuilt it is fast.

Next month I am going to read the monthly challenge
requirements a bit closer to see what size of a project that I’m
allowed to make, thus preventing me from making things harder
than they have to be.
Why on Earth I continue to think I have to “go big or go home” is
beyond me.

Working with small pieces of fabric isn’t my thing but I think I did
ok, and will try it again and maybe not feel so antsy.

Fall colors are still my favorite colors in fabric, as well as the
changing colors with cooler weather.

Thank you to Island Batik for helping me to get out of my comfort
zone again.

Until next time, what’s on your sewing table today?
Victoria aka Tori

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