JBigg's Scrap Pieces: Nested Churn

In late August, I bought Moda Basic Grey Grunge fabric in lots of fall colors. I loved the fabric and knew I wanted to make a fall quilt. (the last fabric on the right is Moda but not grunge)

You can see, I paid $9.99 a yard for the fabric at my local quilt shop here in Murray, KY.

But as usual, I hadn't decided on a pattern to use.

I searched through my patterns but still no decision. Next I took to Pinterest to take a look at fall quilts. Then I found a fall quilt that gave me inspiration.

Oh, a churn quilt! I had a churn pattern that I was planning to use for a patriotic quilt in red, white and blue that I had seen on A Quilting Life's web site.

I had previously bought the pattern by Jane Davidson . . .

and thought I could use her pattern with the fall fabrics I had just purchased. At last I had a plan!!!

The blocks were 24 inch with a total of 16 blocks to make a king size quilt 102 x 102.

The piecing was not hard but still took me three hours per block with all the trimming of each of the four nested churns in each block.

I did use design boards as I cut my fabric out. My board weren't quite finished and had no binding on them but they worked for me. I'll add the binding on the boards soon.

Here is a video on how to make Lori Holt's design boards if you are interested. Click here.

My next dilemma was I had a time frame to complete my quilt. I don't like time frames for my sewing but knew I was leaving for vacation on October 2 and wanted to have my quilt done and to my long arm quilter before I left. I must have been crazy to plan to make a king size quilt in a little less than 30 days! I sewed day and night to get this quilt done!

Do you put pressure on yourself to complete projects?

The 16 blocks had sashing between the blocks and rows. There were also corner stones added.

You can see in the collage below: my blocks, sewing the rows together and one of my design boards.

I am lucky to have a friend who is a retired art teacher and who is great with color. As I was laying the rows out to add the sashing, I would send her pictures and ask about the color plan of the row. She kindly looked at the pic below and said I needed to change them because I had three colors from the same family in one row. Look at the biggest churn in each block and you can see what she was talking about.

After her advice, I used a color wheel to help in planning the blocks and sewing the blocks together.

I finished piecing the quilt one day ahead of schedule and rushed it off to my long arm quilter. I felt relief to have it done! Then off to Florida for some fun with my husband and grandsons on their Fall Break. The beach, the pool, putt-putt golf, we had so much fun and made lots of memories!

I received the quilt back on October 11 and begin sewing the binding on my quilt the next day. I always use a walking foot when sewing the binding. Less stress on my hands and wrists!