Quilting Progress Pony Express (WIP)

I am having great fun in my sewing room.  So much sew that I am finding myself a bit addicted at the moment.  Not that this comes as a surprise to you.

--ONGOING PROJECTS--

Flourishing Garden (king sized)

I've been quite excited to put more and more of this king size quilt together.  It's been like a really good story unfolding.  Almost like each seam sewn is another page turned.  I can't wait to see how this story ends -- and snuggle under it!  At the same time I am loving the process and commitment required to make a king size!

I am still totally shocked at how BIG this quilt will be.

Here is a peak into the progress of making sashing/corners.  Cutting apart left overs as small HST's (half square triangles), and then I did a ton of ironing to open up the sashing.

Next was layout.  If you remember from Tribal, this pattern requires chaos or randomness throughout each step.  It's a lot of work to be chaotic! 

The diamonds are laid out in a 6 by 6.  Then time to randomly distribute sashing.

Next, I sewed the sashing triangles to the diamonds which increased their size by quite a bit.  Then laid the whole thing out once more.  And I'm happy to report that Katie (the dog) has not yet done a home run slide into the fabric on the floor.  Thank goodness!

Now it was time to begin assembling the rows.  So, I stacked the quilt squares carefully to save the order and layout... as it's not practical to leave a large quilt like that on the floor for more than an hour at a time.

Last night, I happily sewed and sewed.  Blocks became pairs, pairs became larger sections, larger sections became rows!  I ran over to the mister to show him the first completed row -- proud as could be; after all this is my first king sized quilt!  He oohhed and ahhed and exclaimed about how big it was. 

Then I went back to sew some more.  After attaching the first two rows together something just didn't seem right.  My randomness seemed off?  I had a square with two parts of the same fabric. 

Yup, something was wrong.

As it turns out this whole time I have been working from row 1 to row 6 as I pieced.  And for some reason this last layout round I decided to work from row 6 to row 1.  Honest mistake which lead to me sewing row 6 to row 1.  Uggg! 

This means I have a date later with my friend Seam Ripper to take these two rows apart.  I thought I could live with it, after all isn't this supposed to be random -- but I can't do it.  I need row 1 to be next to row 2 and so on as planned.

The good news is that I am almost to the point where the top is together.  In fact, I think it will be all together tonight!  Next up is to figure out the backing.  By my (not so accurate) measuring and math I think I will need something around 8 1/2 yards of fabric to make a back.  That's a lot!! 

I am still terrified of quilting something so big, but am taking this one tiny step at a time.  After all... that's how you eat an elephant, right?  One bite at a time?  Not that I am eating elephants, but that refers to how you tackle something bigger than life!

--EVERYTHING ELSE--

Yes, you can assume all other things have been waiting in the shadows while this king size is getting the whole spotlight for now

This Week's Work in Progress (WiP) Stats 

Last WiP Wednesday Total: 6
New Projects: 0

Finished Projects: 0
Total WiP's: 6 (everything is about the same as it has been for a few weeks now)

---Linking to W.I.P. Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced---

日本のための多くの愛
Much love for Japan