Jess's patterns are fantastic. I've been testing her mysteries for quite a few years now, and always enjoy it. But this one, well, this one overwhelmed me some. As I had a baby in the house.
I'm talking about the Someday quilt that Jess designed as a mystery in 2011. This quilt is 78 x89" , and has 224 - 5.5” pieced blocks! That is a LOT of blocks.Jess is fantastic at giving you tips along the way. Like using baggies to keep your step pieces in, or using sticky papers. A design wall also comes in handy, but some of us don't have one of those. So here's a few tips I put together for helping to keep your project in order, as you sew it.
I finished piecing all my blocks together, then had to set the project aside for another day. That day finally got here a few weeks ago. I laid out all my blocks and put them in piles of same blocks. (If you have a small side table you can put near your machine, that would work great. I just had to use the flap on my sewing cabinet.)
I started by looking at the directions for piecing together the finished top. I took the first two blocks, sewed them together and check marked them off on the piece of paper.
I continued to chain stitch all of the first row together.
Making sure I check marked each piece on the piece of paper.
I made all my rows, keeping them in a chain. When I got to the end of row one, I started row two, then sniped off row one and safety pinned a #1 to it. Then folded it up and set it aside. I did these with all the rows as I got finished with this step.
Then I took my row one, snipped all the blocks apart, and started chain stitching two by two. Leaving the last two by themselves.
Still working with row one. I then stitched two-4pieces together, and the 4 and 2 piece.
And then sewed those two pieces together.
I thin reclipped the row #1 sign to it, and started row two.
Repeat, another 14 times!
And when all the rows were sewn, I took rows one and two, sewed them together; checked marked them off on the paper; and safety pinned their row numbers to them. Continue till all your rows are sewn together.
Pinning the row numbers to your rows and marking off the blocks on your paper, really made this project go by smoothly and easily. I constantly looked at the paper to make sure my blocks were in the right place too.
When you have your rows paired up and sewn, you take rows 1/2 and 3/4 and sew them together. Then 5/6 and 7/8. Etc. Just keep stitching the rows together and using your safety pins with the numbers on them. And pretty soon, I had my finished top.
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| Someday quilt pattern by Jessica JE Smith copywrite 2011 |
I hope my little tips can help you out when you are overwhelmed with a project.
Have a great day!
Dorian
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