My Cherish Quilt Process.

Choosing Fabric and Building Blocks

I can’t tell you just how much I’m loving making my current Cherish Quilt! It’s completely engrossed me, which doesn’t always happen when I make a quilt for promotion.

It started after I made my mum a couple of completely prepared quilt kits for her 6 month road trip around Australia. I longed to keep one of them for myself, to baste the ready-cut fabric and stitch away, decisions already made. I wanted a cross-stitch version of a quilt to work on. Colour this part here green, and this part pink.

So, knowing that my Cherish Club was coming up, and knowing that I still had a few Sunday Drive Fabric bundles in the shop, I decided to make myself my own little all-included, completely prepared quilt kit.

Quilts that start off as a combination of various goals I’m trying to achieve (promote a quilt, sell a bundle) don’t always stick for very long. I throw myself in at the beginning and then get bored. I half wondered if this would be the case with this quilt. Add to that the palette is a little different to my usual warm, scrappy tones. There’s not a hint of deep fuchsia in here and I rarely make a quilt without it! But despite the lack of pink, I really liked these prints together. They pique my interest. And there’s nothing more tempting to me than a palette I want to get to know better.

I began by basting all of my centre hexagons. Later I would discard some and replace them, put more interesting prints in the centre and leave the basics for the borders, but for now I just cut one of each, and then I needed a few more, so I just chose my favourites. I then paired up each hexagon with a co-ordinating print. You can see in the photo below, I’m either looking for something completely contrasting in print style and colour (if the print in the centre is a single colour), or I’m looking to connect one of the colours in the hexagon to the first border round (if the print in the centre is multi-coloured).

Once they were all matched with a pair, I cut the diamonds, basted them, put each block in a ziplock bag, and then went about choosing the border’s centre diamond. I laid out all the diamonds around the hexagon and then auditioned prints. It was at this stage that I realised that though I’d treated those Pearl Bracelets as basics, they were actually quite bold and big for the diamonds. I’d just cut them from a strip, and when I laid them out around the hexagon, they looked messy and busy! So before I chose any more centre diamonds, I went back and fussy cut the pearl bracelets I needed, so that I could have the randomly cut diamonds for the border centres.

My plan had been to continue on after this with choosing the half hexagons, but I decided to stitch those little half stars first. They gave me a break from choosing fabric (I start not to care after a while and just throw anything together), and they would make it easier to lay out around the hexagon to choose the final rounds. I sewed the diamonds for a block, and then laid the little pile out on my table so I could have a sense of the vibe growing as I stitched and what it might need. If I felt uneasy about the fabric choices I’d made, I set it aside to think about later, rather than stitch it up.

I’ve been making fabric bundles for the last 18 months or so, carefully choosing basics, and some less basic florals that will be really useful for an EPP stitcher’s stash. I don’t have much storage for fabric bolts building up, so when a certain amount has arrived, I cut it up and bundle it, checking that the prints look nice together if someone wants to make a quilt from them. I love these prints together. They’re like Spring with a touch of spice! But as I was stitching diamonds, thinking about final rounds, I realised that a lot of these prints are similar in style and proportion. There are a lot of ‘bubbles’ (at least, that’s the feeling they gave me) - dots in lines, in bracelets, scattered with mushrooms and butterflies, dots on the ends of flower stems, and sprinkled into more geometric designs. I wanted the quilt to feel a little calmer than what was coming together. In my Sunday Drive Quilt using this bundle, I could achieve that with sashing, but these blocks were going to be butted up next to each other without joining shapes to give them breathing room. I decided to bring in some solids. I don’t have names for all of them, but I added the middle 5 new, and they’re Art Gallery Fabrics Mauvelous, Sweet Fig, Plum Preserve, Parisian Blue, and Tender Green. The top, bottom, and coral are Konas, and the others a various wovens.

I went back and adjusted a few diamond rounds I wasn’t happy with, sewed them up, and started on the outside half hexagons. Interestingly, the diamonds I replaced were all the busier, organic-style florals (like the strawberries a few photos above). The diamonds were just too small for them. I found it interesting later that I really liked the look of them in the half hexagons. I also decided the half hexagons were big enough not to worry about fussy cutting the pearl bracelets.

I laid each block out like the photo below, and looked for prints that I thought would bring the whole block together. I wanted to settle it if it was busy, or give it a bit of spark if it was boring. After I’d chosen, I put the hexagon, half stars, and fabric and half hexie papers in a zip lock bag. The days are short here, so I chose fabric and then set it aside, because I can cut and baste in artificial light.

I cut and basted the hexagons, put all the blocks in ziplock bags again and got stitching!

I could have, at this stage, worked through and finished each block, but I was still feeling a little uncertain about the outcome, and I wanted more control over the process. If I just finished the borders and then packed them away again, then I could swap out some centres if I wasn’t happy. I’ve done this to 3 or 4 blocks - taken out the centre, found another hexagon that suited better. If I couldn’t do a straight swap, I moved a few more around. Also, I really like the feeling of small tasks. Stitching just the half hexagons, and then putting the block bits back in a ziplock bag gave me a fun sense of quick progress.

Now I’m up to the part where I sew the blocks together, and oh my, it feels fun and fast! It takes me between 30-45 minutes, depending on how engrossed I am, to finish a block with all the borders prepared. I’m stitching 3-4 blocks in a session, and my pile is growing nicely! I’ve been pinning them to my design wall from the get go, so that I can add to it steadily and move blocks around as more come in. Sometimes I leave this till last, but I like the idea of getting to take it in over weeks. I’m eager to get it done, but I also want to have the fortitude to unpick any blocks that stand out in a bad way and distract from the rest.

What do you think? I think it feels fresh and happy, don’t you? It feels like a Sunday Drive on the country roads around here when the canola fields are in bloom.

We so often come to block quilts with the assumption that we’ll make one block at a time, or batch-prep 4 or 5 at a time, but I really like building a quilt this way! I find that it gets my attention for longer. I can feel the progress. I’m less likely to take the breaks that come from finishing a batch of blocks and needing to prepare more, and it’s usually these breaks that turn into long stretches in the WIP cupboard. And, I find it easier to choose colours in the context of the whole quilt, rather than block by block. Do you think you’ll try making Cherish this way?

Happy stitching!

Jodi. xx

PS. There’s only 24 hours left to get 15% off Cherish kits and fabric bundles! Head to the shop now to buy yours, so we can stitch together in August!

PPS. If you like my Sunday Drive version of 6” Cherish, I used two bundles, and added some solids from stash. You can find the Sunday Drive Bundle below!