It’s done! And I love it! This is my interpretation of Cheryl Arkison’s Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along 2024: Rainbow Edition Quilt. '

Over the course of 50 weeks during 2024, Cheryl Arkison designed 49 new free improv blocks which she demonstrated by sewing each block live on Instagram. She had a pastel rainbow version and a black and white version. The black and white quilt used fabric she designed several years back. They are very different quilts, even though they are using the same block designs.

Because it is all improv, the “patterns” for each block are a suggestion for how to cut and sew your own block. That means each quilter who participates in the sew along will have a unique quilt. But it will feel familiar when you see what everyone else has made.

It’s so much fun!

All the blocks are available in a playlist on Cheryl’s You Tube channel Quilters’ Playcation. You can see what everyone else has made on Instagram by using the hashtags #qpadventuresewalong2024, #qpadventuresewalong or #quiltersplaycation.

I didn’t have enough yardage of a single fabric in my stash to make the back, so I made 3 more blocks and pieced what I had. The tree and the curved blocks are my own designs and the label is a repeat of the block from week 21.

I started off the year with a purchased stack of fat quarters with a palate of greens, yellows and greys. But I also had a stack of bright fat quarters which I planned to use as pops of colors here and there. As the weather got warmer, so did the blocks in my quilt! I had to make myself back off some weeks and just use the original colors!

My background fabric is a plain white. Cheryl alternated the blocks, one week using the background fabric and the next just the featured colors. When I started the sew along, I just let the blocks be the size they turned out. But as the year went on, my blocks standardized first to 9 inches square and then at 9.75 inches square. When I sewed the rows together, I rotated some of the blocks to get the heights to match and added a bright floral to fill in the gaps. It’s improv, so whatever works is great -- as long as I like it!

I quilted each of the 49 blocks and the filler blocks differently. I only used my walking foot. It was a lot of starting and stopping. I’m hopeless and sewing straight lines using a free motion foot so that wasn’t an option! I Some of the curves were just too tight to machine sew, so I added some big stitch hand sewing on those blocks, and in a few others, just for fun.

This has to be one of my all time favorite quilts. I love the blocks, but it’s the colors that really resonate with me.

Many thanks to Cheryl Arkison for her generosity creating these blocks for free but most of all for sharing her love of playing with fabric!