Jewel Frames Quilt Progresses

I’ve made some really good progress on piecing the blocks for my Jewel Frames quilt.

Each block center is cut to 8 inches. The black strips are 1.5 inches wide, and are 8 inches long on the short side, and 10 inches long on the long side. The blocks were cut from fabric in the kit, plus about 15 blocks that a friend of mine gave me from when she made this quilt.

Since I’m making the quilt big enough for my queen bed, and the kit is for a throw size quilt, I knew I’d run out of the jewel/black Kaffe Fassett paper weight fabric. I was afraid I’d have to delay more sewing while I waited for fabric to arrive.

I’ve been trying to replace a black with white fabric that I’ve used a lot. In searching based on the selvedge on the fabric, I learned that it’s a Civil War reproduction fabric. This really surprised me because if feels modern to me. Well,  I found some online, and the shop also had Kaffe Fassett fabrics, so I bought the black and white, the paper weight, and some Phillip Jacobs black shaggy for the quilt border.

I was really surprised when I opened my mailbox today and found a thick packet inside! It only took two days to get the fabric, so I was off and sewing this afternoon!

I cut a bunch of the fabric into 1.5 inch wide strips, and sat down at the machine to add these strips to all four sides of the big blocks. I love to find efficient and quick ways to get things done, so I sat down with a big stack of strips, and chain pieced about 20 blocks at a time. Then turned them around and chain pieced the opposite edge.

Once I had two sides done, I pressed the blocks, and then added the longer strips to the remaining two sides.

I was able to get the strips sewn onto all 89 blocks today!

I still haven’t decided yet how many blocks I’m going to need for this quilt. I know there’s no arrangement that will require 89 blocks! But maybe 90 would work. I’ll just have to wait and see.

Tomorrow I’ll start putting on the jade Millefiore strips and purple cornerstones. I’m going to have to give that some thought before I start.