“Hey, what ever happened to that star quilt that Rachel started hand-sewing three years ago?” Oh, it’s still here, friends! It’s my longest ever work-in-process and that’s just fine with me! This quilt is English paper pieced. That’s a style of patchwork sewn by hand that relies on geometric paper shapes to achieve unusual results.

I save this one for take-along sewing, usually on vacations. Sometimes I also pull it out in the evenings, but it can hibernate for months as well. Lately I’ve been more diligent because I’m getting excited about seeing the cumulative result. The above batch of blocks was sewn mostly during our trip to America.

I’m following a pattern by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth for this project. It’s called the Ice Cream Soda quilt. Time to take stock and see how far I’ve come!

ICE CREAM SODA LOG

• Need to Cut: 8 half blocks

• Need to Sew: 6 complete blocks, 8 half blocks

• Sewn Blocks awaiting Filler Pieces: 4 complete blocks

• Sewn Blocks with Filler Pieces Added: 58 complete blocks

Total Blocks Needed: 68 whole blocks and 8 half blocks

It’s official, the end is in sight!

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Enjoy!

We’re going away for a few days, which is always good motivation to prep new blocks. Before I updated my log today, I selected these fabrics as a starting point for my last batch of whole blocks.

I began by fussy cutting, using my Tales of Cloth rulers made especially for Ice Cream Soda. These are soooooo worth it, if you’ll be sewing this quilt. I cut the kite shape from the tile print and then realized that I could cut interesting diamonds from the resulting scrap pieces. Fun!

Once I’ve fussy cut a few prints, I begin to mix and match other fabrics put together blocks. Each block requires three fabrics. It takes a fair bit of experimenting to find combinations that I really love.

This is one of my favorite parts of the process - choosing fabrics and cutting out shapes. I do enjoy the sewing as well, but more in a meditative sort of way. This stage is the most exciting!

I’ve begun to wonder what I might do when this project is over. It’s always good to have a portable, hand-sewing project - - -