Bee FF Quilt almost finished. A Modern Baltimore Album Quilt

Hey there! I have another partial finish to show you before returning to T-shirt quilts and customer quilting. This is my 2011 Bee quilt with my group from Flickr. I decided I wanted to focus on perfecting skills with this quilt. I wanted to learn to do more complex appliqué and I wanted to hand quilt the entire quilt. I started the quilting on this about 6 months before I got my first Gammill. Because I was planning to hand quilt the entire thing and having it in a frame was impractical with 3 young children and an anticipated move...I figured quilt-as-you-go was the best bet. Now, I have never done any quilt as you go. I had heard about it and decided it sounded like just the thing and I took the bit in my teeth and took off!

My wonderful friends worked so hard on these awesome blocks. I wanted them to be like Baltimore Album quilts blocks...but MODERN...I got the question about How to make Appliqué Modern quite a few times, but they nailed it! I love each block more than the next one. I sent out little packs of fabric for this one. Fuchsia, chartreuse, grey, lime, pink, a sprinkle of black.

So two years later I am still working away on my quilt, my machine quilting has leapt foreword in technique and skill by a lightyear, and I was frustrated with the progress of this project. While hand quilting is wonderful and soothing, I just could never find the time to sit and quilt quietly. So I decided that I would add machine quilting to the backgrounds of the blocks to add to the modern look I was striving for.

Finally I finished the last block yesterday by the pool (it is summer vacation here after all)...right before we all had to leave due to a tornado warning (the weather never actually formed a tornado but we scurried off home all the same).

Obviously the next step is assembling all the quilted blocks. Well, that is where the internet and social media came in. I had no idea how to do it. A friend from KCMQG gave me links to a couple tutorials (they will be down below). I chose to use the sashing technique. After I put together a couple blocks wrong, it went together really quick. I have decided to let it rest in this state for a bit, and add a big Susan McCord Style boarder. I LOVE Susan McCord and her uninhibited appliqué,

I used a thin linen to back each block and I adore how the quilting shows itself here.

Here is my big mistake block that you can learn from. I know I sure did. The important thing about quilt as you go and using this sashing method is that the blocks all have to be the same size, right? Well, this block (that I made) was way bigger than all the rest. I don't know what I was thinking. But to make it play with the rest of the group I had to hack off the tips of the pretty appliqué. BOOOOOO HOOOOO. Oh well, I guess Athena won't come down and curse me to the life of a spider after seeing this (that is a reference to the tale of Arachnid) so that may be good news after all.

Here is my pretty little Bernina chugging through all the layers. Happy as a clam. She was getting lonely since all my attention has been focused on my Gammills lately.

Overall I LOVE this quilt. I love the colors, I love the blocks and I love the ladies who helped me make it. I also really value the lessons it taught me. Will I ever do another Quilt-as-you-go? Probably NOT. No point really since I have 2 long arms to quilt with. But it is great to learn a new trick.

OK....Links Below!

Flicker Friends Quilt Bee - Thank you again so much! There is no way I could have done this without you!

Sashing Quilt as you go Tutorial

Just stick the blocks together Quilt as you go tutorial