From A - That Last 20%

I've spent more time than I'd like to admit this past week thinking about the ol' 80/20 Rule. Basically the idea that 80% of your outcome requires 20% of your effort and that 80% of your effort is required to get that last 20%.

This theory has been once again been proven true when it comes to my Smitten quilt. I finally got the blocks pieced together last weekend. That took only part of Saturday. For sure I was going to have a finished quilt top by the end of the weekend. FOR SURE. Then I cut and attached the first border from the background fabric. When that was finished I cut a yellow border and sewed that on and then came the green border.

You can see from the top photo that attaching the green border is stalled at the halfway point. I have attached the long sides but now need to finish up the top and bottom. The end seems so close but so far.

Once I pull myself together to finish the green border, I am then faced with the red border. After that I have to make a backing, baste and quilt this bad boy. Totally an 80/20 situation. So close but it is going to take a lot more effort to get there. Sew on.

From A - Nearly Wordless Weekend

I spent the Saturday finishing up my Smitten blocks.

I spent most of today, laying them out on the floor and moving them around while playing with different layouts.

 

I'm still not 100% happy with the layout shown in these photos but I think I'm getting close. I'm hoping to settle on something later this afternoon so I can start sewing them all together.

From A - Nine Blocks a-Finished

Although it was yet another crazy weekend, I managed to find a few minutes to make some more progress on my Smitten quilt between Christmas shopping, Christmas eating and general pre-holiday to-do list type stuff.

I have started sewing my finished blocks together into units. I'm putting the units together one colour at a time to try and keep things organized and to ensure that I don't end up with units that have duplicate fabrics.

So far I've made it through all of the yellow and red units (also, I'm seriously loving the little people in canoes on that red block). To celebrate, I set up a makeshift design wall in order to get a senses of how the units will come together in the quilt top.

Not a ton of variety in there yet but I did start working on the teal blocks yesterday so it will start to look like a real quilt soon.

Back to the ironing board!

From A - Dust It Off

 

You may remember the Smitten quilt challenge that Kelsey and I were working on in October. Although Kelsey finished hers on schedule like a champ, I somehow lost my steam. You may recall that at my last update, I was working on blocks and block configurations. Funny thing is that after that post, I never really picked it up again and this project has been languishing.

Good news is that I finally seemed to have gotten a second wind and last night while working my way through my usual line-up of holiday viewing (Love Actually, Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street - amongst others).

Finally all of my blocks are finished. There are 5 main colours in my charm pack and I am grouping blocks one colour at a time. Last night I grouped them all by print and colour, moving blocks around between colour groups until each colour had a number divisible by four.

Hopefully by next week I'll have all of these sewn together and I'll be working on layout for my quilt top.

I'm glad to finally have some momentum back on this quilt!

From K - Finished: Smitten for each other

Today marks the final days of the Great Canadian Quilt Off 'eh! and I'm thrilled to finally show you my final product.

Week 1: Cut your fabric and start working on blocks

Week 2: Finish making blocks

Week 3: Attach borders and finish quilt top

Week 4: Baste and quilt

This quilt was so much fun to sew up, and I really like how it shows off the fabulous Cuzco prints. In total I made 20 stars (4 columns of 5 rows). In the end I'm really glad I followed Amanda's lead and added a fifth row, as I think this final quilt size will make for lots of couch time.

For the backing I chose a fun numerical text from Ikea that didn't fight with the top for attention. I especially love the timeless nature of this print, I mean when has numbered text ever gone out of style?

Choosing a binding for quilt was tougher than I had expected it to be. I knew I wanted a colored pattern but I couldn't decide immediately on which one. Once the quilt top was finished, I figured a tone on tone blue would do the trick. Here I've used a print from Tea Decadence by Mary Engelbreit.

Final Quilt Details:
- Quilt Name: Smitten for Each Other
- Finished Size: 56" x 70"
- Fabric: Cuzco by Kate Spain; Kona White; Britten Nummer from Ikea, Tea Decadence by Mary Engelbreit.
- Pattern: Smitten by Cluck Cluck Sew
- Quilting: various

Last week during my trip back home to Manitoba, I attended a good friend's wedding. As part of their wedding gift, I gave the couple this quilt and marked it with a custom label. I couldn't imagine this quilt going to a better home, and I hope they get years of enjoyment from it. 

From K - A smitten quilt top

This week of the GCQO has got me excited because it's all about finishing up our quilt tops! In a last minute switch up last week, I realized that a finished square quilt wouldn't make for much winter snuggling, so I took some advice from Amanda's early decision, and added a fifth row.

In order to add 4 more blocks, I used four more blue prints from Cuzco, plus four additional yellow and grey prints from Dena Fishbein's line Taza. I think this was a happy last minute switch up, and I really like how well balanced the colours are.

After adding a fifth row, I decided that I would forgo the borders listed in the original pattern, which will make my finished quilt 56 inches by 70 inches (or 4.6 feet by 5.8 feet). I'm hoping this will be a much snugglier winter throw size.

Sewing my blocks together this week was exciting, and I'm looking forward to next weeks backing, quilting, and binding!

From A - More and More Smitten

I've been working away on my Smitten blocks and think that there is a small chance I might actually get them finished this week, right on schedule.

Given the almost equal balance between light and dark prints in each colour of my fabric, I decided to aim to keep the dark and lights prints across/kitty corner from their counterparts.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what blocks I am going to group together but here's a preview of some of the configurations I like. I'll finalize these once I get my last few blocks finished up.

From K - A Smitten Kitten

Today we're kicking off week two of the Great Canadian Quilt Off, eh! Last week Amanda touched upon her plans for extending her smitten quilt top, and I gave you a sneak peak of my cuzco fabric selection.

Week 1: Cut your fabric and start working on blocks

Week 2: Finish making blocks

Week 3: Attach borders and finish quilt top

Week 4: Baste and quilt

This week is all about finishing up the blocks so lets have a look to see how my quilt top is coming together so far.

These blocks come together so quickly and really start to give you an idea of the final quilt top.

Having a large design wall has really been helpful in deciding my quilt layout - especially when it means that floor work welcomes this fuzzy friend.

Talk about a smitten kitten! Swing by {Sew} Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations to link up your current modern sewing creations.

From A - WIP Kind of Weekend

It's Thanksgiving here in Canada and I am spending the weekend out of town with my in-laws. Long weekends are a perfect time to make some serious progress on the ol' WIP pile.

So far this weekend, I have finished cutting out the background fabric for my Smitten quilt.

Started putting together my first few blocks.

Worked on the duffle bag I'm making.

And enjoyed dreaming up some new projects.

Life's good!

From K - I'm smitten already

Welcome back to week one of the Great Canadian Quilt Off, eh! On Monday Amanda wrote about choosing fabric and how she plans to make some simple changes to the quilt top in order to increase the finished size.

While she's busy working away on her version, I'm kicking off my own smitten quilt this week, starting with three Cuzco charm packs that I picked up last month from Bloomerie Fabrics. I love the range of colours in this line, but more than anything I love the prominent colour gradients.

What first caught my eye about Rachel's Smitten pattern is how beautifully her stars are divided into colour themes. When planning out my quilt, I wanted to ensure that my stars stood out against the white negative space of this quilt top, like Rachel's do, but I also wanted to do something a little bit different. Because Cuzco has such a wide colour gradient, I thought it would be fun to play on that theme.

After I prepared all of my blocks, I began by laying out the stars by colour and gradient, placing the darkest hue in the top left corner, and the lightest in the bottom right.

Since I will end up with two identical stars, I thought it would be interesting to show you a comparison of before and after sewing one of the blocks together.

I'm thrilled with how these blocks are shaping up and can't wait to show you more next week. Be sure to swing by then to see how both of our quilts are progressing. Happy quilting!

  

From A - GCQO Kick Off

It's October 1st which means that it is officially time to kick off the Great Canadian Quilt Off, eh!

To celebrate, Kelsey and I worked on redesigning the blog last weekend and even had our picture taken together since we were -gasp- in the same city at the same time! After having a lovely weekend together sewing, eating junk food and watching movies, we are both pumped and ready to get moving on our Smitten quilts.

Here's the schedule that we are working from in order to (hopefully) get our Smitten quilts finished before the snow flies

Week 1: Cut your fabric and start working on blocks

Week 2: Finish making blocks

Week 3: Attach borders and finish quilt top

Week 4: Baste and quilt

This week is all about cutting our fabric and starting to put those blocks together.

I'm planning to make my Smitten from Cosmo Cricket's Salt Air. I chose this line because most of the prints are pretty colourful (ie. not overly white) and the collection is centred around 4 main colours (red, blue, green, and yellow) which I'm hoping will mean that deciding on a block layout will be easy. I also just love the fabric and the soft weathered colours.

While I was planning this quilt, I decided that I wanted something a little bit bigger than the 64" x 64" finished quilt that this pattern makes. I also decided that I wanted to use up as many charm squares as I could AND that I wanted a rectangular quilt instead of a square one.

I will be adding another row of blocks so that the quilt has 5 rows of blocks instead of 4. I also decided to widen the borders a bit to better show off the three border fabrics I'd chosen (see the red, green and yellow prints in the top photo). With the help of some quilty math, I settled on a finished quilt size of 72" x 87". If you're interested in making the same modifications to your quilt, you'll need 3 yards of background fabric, 3/4 yards of the two inner border fabrics and 1.5 yards of the outer border/binding fabric in addition to the 3 charms packs called for in the pattern.

I've managed to cut out all of my charm squares and need to now get started on cutting the background fabric.

I've got a mug of hot cocoa and a fresh blade on my rotary cutter. Wish me luck!

From A&K - Great Canadian Quilt Off, eh!

We thought it was high time to have a little shindig here on the blog and nothing says fun like a bit of competition. Two blogger cousins, two quilts, one pattern....enter the Great Canadian Quilt Off, eh!

We will both make the same pattern at the same time, using different fabrics and whatever means necessary to get 'er done in 4 weeks. Pretty cool, eh? 

What lovely quilt pattern will take top honours? Well majority rules here on the blog and one of our lovely readers voted for Rachel Griffith's Smitten earlier this month, so Smitten it is.

Feel free to join in and make a Smitten of your very own (Canadian citizenship not required). If you want to play please leave a comment on this post telling us who you are and where you're from or email us at contact AT everydayfray DOT com and we'll put together a list of participants so we can all keep in touch and motivate each other.

In case you are still on the fence, there are some lovely Smitten quilts to be found here, here, here, and here that might just tip the balance for you.

The pace will be slow and manageable since we both have full-time jobs and a whole lot of other things to worry about. The schedule will look something like this:

Week 1: Cut your fabric and start working on blocks

Week 2: Finish making blocks

Week 3: Attach borders and finish quilt top

Week 4: Baste and quilt

Who knows, if this goes well we might even triple up and turn it into some kind of hat-trick (we couldn't help ourselves on that one, after all this wouldn't be very Canadian if we didn't include some kind of hockey reference).

Welcome one and all to the Great Canadian Quilt Off, eh! We'll be kicking Week 1 off on October 1st so be sure to swing by to read all about our fabric selections and how the whole getting started thing is working out.