WIP Wednesday: Embroidery Flower Quilt

 When I first saw this free pattern offered by Tilda Fabrics, I feel completely in love with it. It was last year and I had started tracking my fabric and trying really hard to not purchase anything that was not necessary--trying to keep purchases to backgrounds and backings. 

But the Embroidery Flower Quilt made me throw caution to the wind and order the kit. It checked all the boxes. Stunning design, gorgeous colors, and a line of solids I had not yet worked with--which seemed like reason enough. 

Initially I had buyer's remorse. After all, I had SO many solids on my shelves that I'm sure I could easily have made it from stash. However...there are 46 different colors in this quilt, which made me think that the kit was worth every bit of money. 

There are 2,268 2" squares in this quilt--1.5" finished. The pattern is broken up into nine blocks, 14 squares across and 18 rows down. 

To keep from messing things up, I knew I had to come up with a plan to be super organized. Fortunately, there were some hints along the way. The first thing I did was order some fabric organizer cards from JitkaDesign on Etsy. We already had eight stackable organizers. I don't remember where we got them, and they have never been used for anything, but they were absolutely ideal for this project.

I spent a couple of days cutting all the beautiful colors. I decided to cut the blue background squares as needed--1,164 squares is way too many for my arthritic hands!

Even the trimmings are pretty...

Then to come up with a plan to keep the rows organized.

I pinned post-it notes with the row numbers, 1-18, on my design wall. Then I put up all the squares for Block 1.

I sewed the squares in sets of two vertically, then sewed those into sets of four, etc., until each horizontal row was sewn together. I put a pin in the far left square of each row so that I would not accidentally turn the row around. 

I pressed all the seams on the uneven rows toward the right, all the seams on the even rows toward the left, and then I sewed pairs of rows together. The seams nested very nicely, and I pinned each seam for added insurance that things would line up. I was so excited when the first block was completed. Here you can see just how much the block shrinks in length when there are 18 rows! 

Block 2 was fun to put together because there was a lot more color.

This is definitely a slow process, but wow, it's just so stunningly beautiful. I'm hoping to get it completed and quilted in time for the annual MCC quilt auction. Fingers crossed.