MONTH 1 — Show Your Progress Here

[Annette M.]

I finished my outer blocks (machine pieced using glue stick to hold the fans in place).

[Barbara B.]

Wow, way ahead! Whatever will you do the rest of the year?!

[Helen W.]

Annette, Your border is beautiful. Nice design wall. HelenW

[Marge P.]

[Marge P.]

I finished the border blocks, they were easy and fun to make. I made 95 blocks, I will use the extras on the back of the quilt...

[soniasimone]

Finished month 1 under the wire!

[soniasimone]

Somehow the rest of my comment is hiding somewhere.
Right now I'm quilting a Bowie Stars (big stitch by hand), working on Golden Days with a local group, and doing some blocks for Jen's 2023 BOM Caution Curves Ahead.
So I have a lot of Jen Kingwell going on at the moment!

[Helen W.]

Sonia, I would love to see a picture of your big stitch quilting. I want to give it a try. I am thinking
on my Homeward Bound After Dark quilt. HelenW

[soniasimone]

Helen, I will load up a pic! I always do big stitch. It combines really well with machine quilting, too -- you can do basic machine quilting to stabilize, then add big stitch for extra texture and embellishment.

[Ellen L.]

Finished Month 1. I'm not a stranger to hand sewing, but I had a tough time securing the ends and found many of them unraveling as I was putting on the outer border. That border was so very easy to hand sew and I just kept dipping down and resewing some of the wedges that were coming undone. I have plenty of other projects to do at the sewing machine, including the 2022 and 2023 BOMs. So this one will be only hand sewn. Looking forward to next month.

[Helen W.]

Ellen, Fun color palette. Looks a little patriotic. Did you try using Jen's tailor knot at the start and end
of each seam. It holds good. HelenW

[Dawn C.]

Don't know why my name doesn't appear on this post like I see it for the other posters. This is Dawn Carson.

[Barbara B.]

Check your Account Settings. Click on the people silhouette to the right of your photo, then Edit Settings/Account Settings/Privacy on your Profile page.

[Amy G.]

[Amy G.]

I truly enjoyed cutting with scissors and sewing by hand the entire block . My points came out perfectly and thank you for the helpful hints I left the extra material on the frame.

[Marilyn M.]

Still having a bit of difficulty in getting my head around "scrappy" and I'm not too sure I'm getting it right.
First photo: 32 Outer fans stitched in groups of eight blades with semi-circle centre. Blades pieced by machine, semi-circle by hand.
Second photo: Fans back nestling and sleeping in their tin until the end of the year. Sweet dreams, little fans!!

[Helen W.]

Marilyn M. Your fan units look so cute all nestled into the tin. Your tin storage idea will always
be something I think of when I think of Pick A Petal. Just one of those cute ideas that was perfect
for the its storage job. I do like the semi-circles being of the same fabric. Makes the scrappy concept
not so intense. HelenW

[soniasimone]

I think your scrappy looks just right!

[Stacy S.]

Curved piecing and Y-seams are definitely NOT part of my every day sewing. I actually tend to avoid them like the plague. For sure, this piece is full of little bobbles everywhere, but that's okay.I really like Jen's quilt and when I'm done, I will still have a beautiful quilt, inspired by her work, and maybe with a few tweaks of my own. I am hand-piecing and hand-quilting everything and working completely from my stash. I am also going to do this as a quilt-as-you-go project. We are moving to a new house this year, so the time I have to work on this project may get really slim, but I will keep up as best as I can. I have really enjoyed looking at all the submissions so far and love all the different ways folks will be making their Pick a Petal quilts.

[Helen W.]

Stacy, Do you plan to do tradition hand quilting or big stitch? I would love to do quilt as you go
because I have a bunch of quilt tops that have never got quilted. Please post pictures of your
progress, I eagerly await seeing how you go about it. HelenW

[Stacy S.]

Hi Helen, I plan to just use traditional hand quilting. I haven't tried big stitch, though I like the way it looks on projects. Will post pics as I get pieces done.

[Deb S.]

[Barbara B.]

No photo, it was probably too large. See the TOPIC on how to post photos to find out how to resize it

[Ellen L.]

I just had to share. My husband bought me a cricut for Christmas after I attended a talk by Kestrel Michaud. I was so taken by her quilts and what she was doing. He never ties to buy me crafting tools. But this time he did. It took some research and some watching Youtube videos, but this morning I sat down and cut a whole lot of the little fan shapes. And I'm going to cut more! The templates imported into the software so easily and I won't have to spend hours just cutting those little corners! I'm really over the moon.

[Donna S.]

Month 1 section finished - all hand pieced - not 16 1/2 inches - but I am amazed it looks nice.

[Alice]

Was not going to do it this year (too scared of hand piecing somehow managed to convince myself last Friday to give it a try. Many ripping and resewing finally it is done! Not happy with the fabric choices (the star blends in and hard to see) but I am okay to leave it at this point, haha.

[soniasimone]

I really like it, though, it has a beautiful vintage feel. Laundry Basket fabrics?

[Deb S.]

[Barbara B.]

No photo, probably too large. See the instructions in the Sticky Topics for how to resize.