Just One Row At A Time

     My husband's brother and sister-in-law were here last week. We had a wonderful visit. Hopefully there will be a retirement soon and they can live near us. They had to go back home yesterday. I hate that. It's so nice visiting with the ones you love.

     I'm about rested up and am starting to get on with sewing projects that have been sitting around. Yesterday afternoon I finished one row of a quilt I started in January - YES this year! I've heard it called Chevron or French Braid. Below is a book by Jane Miller. She has other books too, carrying on with more variations/ideas. You can find tons of examples of French Braid quilts on Google Images. It's pretty amazing all the configurations you can make with this pattern.

Amazon.com shows several pages inside.

     I took a class through my quilt guild January 7th. The teacher showed us a table runner, but I had a lot of fabric, so why make something little (and get it finished - haha)?

     Mine is pretty simple, 14 different fabrics plus 1 for a large center square and 1 more for the little accent square. Then the same 14 fabrics are used on the opposite side of the large square. I think I had all these fabrics in my stash of 1 yard, 1/2 yard, and fat quarter pieces.

     I love using my little Featherweight machine. This shows fabrics #1-8 cut in 7.5" strips. I did a lot of shuffeling to get the fabrics in the order I wanted. The #9 shown here turned out to be my final #8. The large paisley square measures 7.5". The little wine accent squares are 2.5".

This shows a 15th fabric. I must have weeded one out somewhere. Oh, I see.

I didn't use the #8 shown here. These hadn't been cut into strips yet.

 

This shows fabrics #1-5 sewn together. 

This shows fabrics #3-8.

Showing fabrics #1-8. This is where I stopped & set it aside.

 

     Working at school and a new grandson to play with, this is where I took a 6 month hiatus.   :)

 

  This shows the remainder of the row, adding on fabrics #9-14.

 The pattern repeats on both sides of the large center square.

One completed row. It's 90"x13".

     I wish the pictures were better. My cell phone rarely takes good pictures. I say that with every blog entry. (Shhh, can't find David's camera. I know I saw it around here somewhere.)

     This quilt will be 90 inches from top to bottom. Each row will finish at 10" wide. I don't know how wide the quilt will be. Twin? Double? Queen? That will depend on how the fabrics hold out. I've had these fabrics a while and can't get anymore of the same. There are instructions for how much fabric is needed, but as usual I am winging it, flying by the seat of my pants. Using this technique all these years, my pants are wearing mighty thin.

     So, 6 months to make one row. When will this be finished? Let's calculate:  3 cubed  x  E=Mc2 divided by 3.14159 (and yes, I made 2 fresh strawberry pies while David's brother was here) - width/mood factor = Ummm. I'll let you know.