I'm having a great time participating in the Flickr Group Vintage Quilt Revival Block Along which started in January. The group is making blocks in the book, Vintage Quilt Revival: 22 Modern Designs from Classic Blocks by Katie Clark Blakesley, Lee Heinrich and Faith Jones. The authors have taken classic quilt blocks and put a modern twist on them. The book has some stunning modern quilts they made for examples.
The blocks are rated Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. The book has photos of quilts made with just 1-2 of the blocks as well as suggestions for 3 sampler quilts. A CD included with the book has patterns for paper piecing the more complicated blocks and for a couple other projects. I've found the paper piecing patterns have worked beautifully. There were some typos in the book that affecting cutting the pieces. Corrections can be found here: Pattern Errata.
I'm using my stash for my blocks. I had some half yard cuts from the Victorian Modern line from Andover Fabric which was designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, some small cuts from Fiber on a Whim which were cut from hand dyed fabric which weren't evenly dyed enough to be sold as yardage. I've added some odds and ends when I needed some larger pieces of fabric.
I've found working on a sampler quilt a real challenge. Each week I have to choose the colors for 2 new blocks from my stack of fabrics so it's like designing a new quilt every week. And each block has it's own learning curve. As the weeks go on the learning curve has been getting steeper every week. But my paper piecing skills are getting better too so it has been totally doable We are half way through the Block Along. Here are the blocks so far:
This week's 2 blocks with the book.
The blocks are rated Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. The book has photos of quilts made with just 1-2 of the blocks as well as suggestions for 3 sampler quilts. A CD included with the book has patterns for paper piecing the more complicated blocks and for a couple other projects. I've found the paper piecing patterns have worked beautifully. There were some typos in the book that affecting cutting the pieces. Corrections can be found here: Pattern Errata.
I'm using my stash for my blocks. I had some half yard cuts from the Victorian Modern line from Andover Fabric which was designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, some small cuts from Fiber on a Whim which were cut from hand dyed fabric which weren't evenly dyed enough to be sold as yardage. I've added some odds and ends when I needed some larger pieces of fabric.
I've found working on a sampler quilt a real challenge. Each week I have to choose the colors for 2 new blocks from my stack of fabrics so it's like designing a new quilt every week. And each block has it's own learning curve. As the weeks go on the learning curve has been getting steeper every week. But my paper piecing skills are getting better too so it has been totally doable We are half way through the Block Along. Here are the blocks so far:
This week's 2 blocks with the book.
Blocks from the previous weeks.
Check out the Flickr site to see all the great blocks that other folks are making. I'll post my progress as the project continues. There are 5 more weeks to go!