Our New Quilt-in-a-Box Guild Project for 2022

The Proper Bostonian Quilt Guild’s 2020-21 Quilt-in-a-Box was so successful, that we have voted to do it again this year. For this project, we each commit to sewing the block of our choice using the fabrics chosen by 8 other guild members. The fabric collections are kept in plastic craft boxes which we exchange at our bi-weekly meetings. Click the link above to go to see all the quilts our guild members made in our first Quilt-in-a-Box.

This time I have picked a block that isn’t technically difficult but does take a couple hours to make. It’s the Hexagon Star block.

The fabrics in this block are an Australian Aboriginal print (the dark floral called “Flowers in the Desert” by Lauren Coolan for M&S Textiles Australia), and Tula Pink’s “Mineral” from True Colors (orange) and Dragon’s Breath solid (purple).

My box of fabrics 8 Aboriginal print fabrics, more Tula Pink fabrics, Blank Quilting Corp. “Lower the Volume” and a few odds and ends I’ve pulled out of my stash. I’ve written a note asking my fellow quilters to try to avoid using the “Lower the Volume” Topography design, a soft grey print on white fabric which actually beautifully complements the box fabrics, and to strive to use the brights in the box as the background in their blocks. It’s a tall order. It’ll be interesting to see what they do!

I learned in our last Quilt-in-a-Box project that it was wise to make a test block before committing to making a block 9 times! My first choice last year just refused to consistently size up to 12 1/2 inches unfinished. So I switched to a similar block which did behave itself!

Here’s this year’s test block…a lot of the fabrics are actually left over from my last box! I added some Christmas fabric and turned it into a little 12 inch Christmas pillow, which kept it from ending up as an orphan block.

Test Hexagon Star Quilt Block

I’m looking forward to getting the first box in the project at our meeting next week!

"My Village" Quilt-in-a-Box Completed Quilt

Finally my Quilt-in-Box guild project quilt is complete! Our guild started this project in 2019 but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the blocks weren’t all done until last fall. There is information about this project in my posts from November 5, 2020 and November 12, 2020.

This quilt has both free-motion quilting and straight line quilting. Some blocks have both, while others just have one type of quilting. Here are some of the blocks to show the details.

There is a fair breeze in the ship’s sails and rolling waves in the water. I added portholes too.

The house in the center of this log cabin block is in a leafy neighborhood and there are puffy fair weather clouds overhead. The foxes are napping in the nearby wood and the otters are playing in the eddies in the stream.

There are fires lit in both hearths in this home. The roof has scalloped shingles on the roof and rough-hewn timber cladding. I added a 6 panel window to the door to make sure there is lots of light inside!

There is straight line grid work in the Whimsical Whirlwind block with free-motion quilting in the negative space.

The quilt backing is a French fabric with a design which is in keeping with all the tiny woodland animals in the fabrics of this quilt.

I designed the fabric with the little houses which is in many of the blocks. It is called “Little Houses” available at Spoonflower.com. Here are the links to “Little Houses” with the white background and and blue background.

This was a great quilt guild project, one which I’d be happy to do again! Many thanks to all the members who made blocks for my quilt!

Quilt-in-a-Box Completed Quilt Top

Back in November I told you about our guild’s 2019-2020 Quilt-in-a-Box project. Here, finally, is the quilt top with all the blocks that quilt members made with the fabrics in my box.

I pulled the yellow leaf print from my stash. It had been there for years—clearly just waiting for this project. The yellow really is cheerful and somehow ties it together perfectly.

I have some solid bright yellow fabric which I might use for the backing. But I’m still thinking about that.

I’m so pleased with how this quilt turned out!

Our guild still isn’t meeting due to the pandemic, but were are starting a mystery quilt. Stay tuned. I think there I might be seeing some sails on the horizon!

Quilt-In-A-Box Blocks Made for My Box

In my last post I told you about our Quilt Guild’s year-long Quilt-in-a-Box project. We were able to met in a member’s driveway and do a socially distanced box swap…the final one. Yes, we have our own boxes back now. This is SO exciting. Some folks have already put their tops together!

A friend, who wasn’t in my box rotation (nor I in hers), decided to do a couple more swaps between us. I made her my propeller block and two others, and she made me her house block which she made for all the boxes, and the schooner block. I had made I block that I wasn’t happy with before settling on my propeller block, so we both ended up with a total of 12 blocks.

We spent an afternoon laying out blocks on her picnic table, thinking about how we are going to assemble our blocks. I have so many log cabin blocks, that I think I am going to try to put this quilt together is some sort of log cabin variation. At least, that sounds good on paper.

I have some holiday sewing to finish up before I tackle this quilt, so it will be a while before I have a pieced top. But I’ll post it as soon as I have it done!

Quilt-in-a-Box Blocks I Made for The Guild Member Boxes

Last fall, our quilt guild, Proper Bostonian Quilters, started a Quilt-in-a-Box project. Each member was given a pink plastic project box and asked to place enough fabric in the box to make 9 blocks. Everyone participating chose one block to make all year. Each month the box was passed to the next name on a box and you made your block with the fabrics in that box. Then you passed it to the person on the list at the next month’s meeting. The goal was to have 9 blocks done by April so that the folks could make a quilt top by the last meeting in June. But then COVID-19 arrived, one block before the box round was completed. So the boxes stopped their rotation.

Finally, at the very end of September, we did a final swap for the final block outside in a member’s driveway.

The block I put in my box of fabric is called “Propeller” and it is the block show at the top of this post. Here are some of the other “Propeller” blocks I made using the fabrics chosen by other members for their own boxes. There is quite a diversity of fabrics in each person’s box.

I’ll show you the completed blocks in my box when I get them back. I can’t wait to see what folks did with my set of fabrics!

This is a really fun guild project, it just takes a bit of organization on the front end and the commitment of members to bring the box and their completed block to each meeting.