A Tale of Two Quilt Projects

Two weeks ago, I have a pile of scrappy tulip blocks and a set of ziplock bags containing a little over 700 colored squares.

Today, I made the last block of the Tokyo Subway Map quilt and completed putting together the quilt top.

Here's how those two projects look now.

The smaller quilt is approximately 60 inches square. I still haven't decided if I will add borders.

The larger quilt is 100 inches square ... which is why I took it outside for it's photograph.



Both are made from pretty much the same set of scraps.

In the original Tokyo Subway Map QAL, there is some appliqué and more small squares on the back. I like the design–you can see a photo of someone else's quilt in the original Flickr group here–but I am not sure I'm up to cutting another 100 or so of those squares ... maybe I will combine that task with yet another scrappy work-in-progress ... and then the real adventure can begin (quilting that monster).

I'm sharing these projects with these lists:

Creative Goodness on Quilt Shop Gal
Can I get a Whoop Whoop? on Fabric Addiction

Progress Report and Lessons Learned (So Far)

I am still improvising solutions for working on large quilts in my small space with a smaller design wall.  This weekend, I went outside.



I am making a very large (100 inches square) version of the quilt. This chunk is 9 blocks (upper left corner) of the 25 blocks in the quilt. Because I decided to forgo cutting the 891 white squares in the original design and cut larger sections as each block allowed, I got a little bit of a jump start on the quilt-along schedule. Also, I am a little obsessed with it ...

Making the blocks out of numerical order made it easier for me to see the transitions of the various colored subway lines.  This corner includes blocks numbered 1-3, 6-8 and 11-13.

I mentioned before that I had saved the block patterns from the original QAL in 2010.  While I did save the block diagrams, I did not save the helpful blog posts ... that are now no longer online.  Oops.

I've approached cutting the white background into larger pieces where possible by cutting for the individual blocks as I assemble them.  I print the block diagram and mark it up to know what sizes I need to cut from the background.  I start with width of fabric (WOF) strips that are cut in widths that are equivalent to 1 square, 2 squares and 3 squares. As I am making the decisions of how to chunk the background area, I am also thinking about how the block can be sewn together and pressed, since the pieces in a single block will no longer be a simple 8-by-8 grid.

I suspect the time saved by not cutting those 891 small white squares is now being spent deciding what larger sized chunks I need for each block and puzzling the pieces together–but since I enjoy that kind of a challenge, it's all good :-)

It's going to be a monster quilt–had I made a single block before cutting the 709 colored squares, I think I would have decided to make a smaller quilt–but I am looking forward to quilting it and already thinking about the quilting design.

Because the scrappy orange line is prominent in this section, I'm joining the last orange link-up for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. If anyone has been eying the Tokyo Subway Map Quilt pattern but not sure they want to cut all those squares, I was thinking how one could cut the squares from one color each month as part of the RSC (there are 12 colored lines in the quilt).

I am also joining these lists:

Oh Scrap!
Design Wall Monday
Creative Goodness