Ode to the 1930’s: A Sampler Quilt

You may recall that my quilting partner, ShaRee, and I spent 2014 making barn blocks into quilt tops. We have embarked on some new adventures that I will write about later. We meet every other week to sew so we decided we could invite a friend to join us and do a project with all three of us on the other week. I mean, YOLO, right? So in January 2015 we embarked on our grand adventure. We decided on “Ode to the 1930’s: A Sampler Quilt” by Lori Smith, www.frommyhearttoyourhands.com. It’s a challenging quilt with lots of piecing and (gasp) applique. But the purpose of working together is that two, or in this case, three heads are better than one and we all learn from each other. We each have different tricks to teach other and we can learn!

Here’s a picture of the finished quilt from Lori’s website.

We are carrying out this project in the AMAZING sewing room in Terry’s basement which has room for all of us to cut and sew with lots of room to spare!

So, the quilt. It’s big. It has 42 traditional quilt blocks that are variously 12×12, 9×9, 6×6, and 3×3 and combine piecing and applique. We have been collecting 1930’s prints and are combining our stashes to share the fabric and make the three quilts. Because we don’t just make one, we EACH make one. We began with a shopping trip to buy our various white background fabrics and then dived in. We debated about doing all the piecing blocks first, then the applique because we’re cowards, but in the end we decided to just go with the order given in the pattern. Using the pattern color suggestions and the fabrics in our possession, we chose these prints and sewed up the first block.

Block #1 Homespun 12×12, blocks by ShaRee, Sue, and Terry