quilt as you go |quilt-along| { ROUND TWO! }

i am more than a little excited to announce the infamous... quilt as you go quilt-along is starting again with a ROUND TWO and in addition to that... i'll be running it! i have longed to try this quilting concept, but as life an sometimes go... i wasn't able to participate the first time out. so, i contacted miss Penny at sewtakeahike and begged her to do another round... and she kindly offered to hand her baby over to me to head up the 2nd round ( here's to doin ya proud Penny! ) :) So... here's the deets for ROUND 2!!

there will be two different formats of the concept { quilt as you go }... one will be the traditional take on the block/ quilt preformed by miss penny found here in round 1. the second will be my take on the incredible opportunity i see with this method to practice a multitude of Free Motion Quilting styles.

Each participant in the quilt-a-long can choose from either or both methods... that's the beauty of this funky style!! this endeavor really is meant for the novice quilter to the most experienced... so no worry about feeling this may be above you!!! just grab your big girl panties ( or boys ) and jump in!! it's gonna be a party!

For those who are unfamiliar with the traditional quilting { quilt as you go } concept... miss penny has provided a little back drop on how this phenomenon came about...

Someone from one of my quilting bees requested blocks that looked like the quilt out of the book "Patchwork Style". I immediately referenced the book, and found the style to be right up my alley since I love patchwork. I had never before thought I would make a quilt larger than lap-sized, but I started dreaming of making huge quilts, since I believed that quilting as you go would lend to that.

I wasn't convinced though that the method to sew the blocks together would be best, so I did a couple of experiments (you can read about that here). In the end, the method presented in the book seemed the quickest, and the final result was about the same.
I made a few blocks and posted them on sewtakeahike and started getting several requests for a quilt-along.

I just love this QAYG method! I may someday break down and pay a long arm quilter to quilt one of my quilts, but until then, this QAYG method is working great for me!

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now to introduce you to the newest method...

i recognized that with the traditional method that you were in essence building a wonky log cabin block& quilt once they were pieced together. so, i thought... HHmmm.... this style of piecing and quilting a block and THEN joining them would also generate the possibility to practice Free Motion Quilting abundantly within a safe size ( since, i think we can all get scared from trying new methods because of the fear of ruining an entire quilt or have seam rip the entire hot mess we made! )

So why not... make a wonky log cabin first, then sandwich my block ( which are 15" square ) with batting and a simple/ inexpensive muslin backing??? then the sky's the limit... quilt away kids... any method you'd like that you never felt you could try before due to the size of your projects.

it's perfect, really... you're making a quilt while feeling out all the quilting methods you've been too scared to try... you're not making mini's, not making pot holders, or pillows... but a quilt! and there is NO reason to be scared of the ending size either... because your quilt will be "quilted" as you go!!!.... with each block bringing a different adventure!!

i sure hope you all are as excited as i am! not only will we be creating a major piece of functional art... but, we'll be feeding each other creative food by uploading all of are block quilting images to the Flickr group ( thus bringing unlimited quilting designs to each other! )

and... as an addition to the hype of this project... i will be facilitating a { fabric strip Swap } too... the funkiest quilts are those which have a massive selection of fabrics within them! this offer is unfortunately, only for round 2 participates though. ;)

Kick off for this project will be September 8th.
i'll see you then with more info, goals, and fun examples!!

XO, Heather