VIP WIP

This week-end has been like a sewing marathon for me but it has been so much fun and so good! Sewing is really the best relaxation ever. With my lovely group of IG friends we decided a while ago to make a quilt using charm packs. The deal was that we would use all our choice of fabric to make a common pattern and general vote picked the Castles on the Horizon pattern shared by Michele on the Moda Bake Shop site.

When we first discussed the idea in the Spring, I didn't read the pattern with enough attention to notice that 4 charm packs were needed for the quilt. It was only when I started to gather supplies early September that I realised that oh! shopping would have to be involved :-) And this is also when I decided that I would do the quilt for my friends' 40th birthday, giving myself a deadline for the quilt to be finished by 11 October, yes this week-end.

I was planning to get started earlier but, if you read me regularly, you will know by now that I am the queen of last minute. So I started sewing the HST last week. Using a layer cake rather than charm packs meant that I could sew 8 HST at a time :-)

I finally pieced my first star last Thursday. I used my "extreme paper-piecing" method and by Saturday night, all 12 stars were done

and the centre of the top was assembled too!

And it took me the whole of my sewing time on Sunday to finish the top as I needed more HST for the outside borders.

So 520 HST later, the quilt is on the frame ready for free-motion quilting and I am a little bit nervous about the quilting phase I must admit! Hoping to have it all done by Saturday morning though, wish me luck :-)

Michele has found out about our QAL and she wrote a little feature about our group on her blog here, if you want to check it out!

I can add 12 blocks to this month 350-blocks challenge to take me to 15 already, wow!

Linking to WIP Wednesday, Let's Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday.
Celine