CCCQ First Year Finish

I received a photo this week from Kathleen Connor in the north west hills of Connecticut.  She's a CCCQ fan and has made this quilt top from The First Year patterns.  Not only does she have a finish, two of these blocks are Kathleen's own design.

I asked Kathleen about her journey with the Chester Criswell Quilt.  She says,

"I've enjoyed every stitch I took for this quilt! The first Chester Criswell block I made was Jane Wilson's block, #1. I found that I loved doing the one piece, papercut style block with needleturn applique. Next up was Block 2 which reminded me of the traditional leaf and reel blocks found in many antique quilts. Sharon's patterns were a joy to work with, well drawn and not difficult to stitch. At that point I thought of making a 9-block quilt with the leaf and reel style blocks balancing "square-shaped" blocks like Block #1. I knew I wanted to put the circular Block 4 in the center; this is my favorite block though it's hard to choose a favorite, isn't it?

I designed two new versions of reel blocks for the quilt.  I thought I'd design an applique border for the quilt, but when the blocks were put together with the sashing, I visited a new-to-me quilt shop and found the perfect large scale paisley. I'm going to hand quilt around the edges of each applique motif. Then I might do echo quilting in the background of each block, or I'll do diagonal quilting lines across the backgrounds and sashing. I had better decide soon!

I've had a great time with this quilt, and I plan to use more Chester Criswell blocks in a future quilt."

Thank you very much Kathleen, for sharing your work.  I'm impressed with the way Kathleen's new designs blend with the old.  Every one has favourite blocks ... and not so favourite blocks.  If you don't like the block you have to make next just replace it with one of your own. 

Another CCCQ fan, Wanda at Scrap Happy aka Blended Quilter, is looking for a swap partner for Block #24.  If you're interested just hop over to her blog.

The Wow Factor

I received this lovely photo from Zoë in British Columbia, Canada.  She's completed all The First Year blocks.

Zoë has stuck to the red and green 1850s colour scheme but has chosen from a wide variety of values and prints.  I noticed something interesting in the top left hand corner and asked Zoë about it. It's a little drawing of her house.

Yes, it's a picture done in brown ink.  I have enough trouble just signing my name in a block - how special is it to create an inked sketch? I feel very privileged to find that my patterns have become a starting place for some beautifully creative work. 

A number of people have completed the first twelve blocks.  If you send me a photo I will put it in the next blog post. 

And  if you are waiting for the Second Year check your email inbox next week. Details of the next exciting installment will be soon revealed ....

The Year in Review

*** The new website for www.twobitspatches.com is looking great!  We are open and ready for visitors, hope you like the new format.

If you have been making one block each month you might have something like this.

These blocks are my First Year blocks.  They are just a photoshopped quilt at the moment, but I have begun my quilt-as-you-go and two of the blocks are joined together in the reality world.

My final quilt will be 6 by 6 blocks, and the layout will be something like the picture below.  I'm using EQ7, it is much more useful than EQ5.  The wreath block isn't quite in the right spot, the centre square will take up four positions.  Which I'm sure you can do in EQ7, I just need to keep reading the manual.

The original Chester Criswell quilt is bigger, it's an 8 by 8.  The blocks are repeated two or three times, and the layout looks a little like the picture here.

In one of the many online applique groups, a member asked if the Chester Criswell quilt was suitable for a beginner.  The suggestions have been interesting, what would you say?