Lucy Boston Milestone

Since August of 2019 I have been working on sewing the sashing around all 56 of my Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses quilt blocks. My Instagram feed has been an interrupted parade of blocks with their new grey perimeters, each one counting up to the finish.

Block 32 of 56, finished Apr 15, 2020

Block 35 of 56, finished Apr 27, 2020

Block 44 of 56, finished Sep 6, 2020

And finally on Sunday, the last one!

Block 56 of 56, finished Feb 7, 2021

At some point I shared the concern that I might get bored of sewing (seemingly) endless grey honeycombs, but really, I didn't. I enjoy the stitching and it was a lot less taxing than when I had to match the fabrics in the blocks! Each block didn't take too, too long so I had regular injections of feeling like I had finished something.

You would think using solid grey would preclude any drama, but I managed. When I bought the grey fabrics, I was planning to use different shades from white to dark grey. After I bought them, I decided the white wasn't going to work and changed my plan. Last April, I pulled out the fabrics to compare what I needed with this new plan to what I had.

You can see the fabric I labeled "3" just has a couple strips left; it was not enough.

Glad that I kept everything organized and labeled, I knew exactly what to order. I made a trip to the store where I got it on the off chance I would get fabric from the same bolt, and they didn't have it any more. Being my last option, I ordered some online and just hoped it would match what I had. Dye lots in yarn is a real thing (as in different batches of the same colourway won't be the same) and I thought that might be true of fabric too. When I got it, I tucked it away because I wasn't in a cutting mood and had plenty of other blocks to sew.

At the end of the year, I got through sewing all the other blocks and finally needed to cut strips from grey 3. But I couldn't find the extra that I had bought earlier in the year. I searched through my maker space and the boxes of my fabric multiple times and could not find it. I finally decided it wasn't worth my time to keep looking and ordered more. Even further removed in time from the original purchase; even more chance of the dye lot not matching.

I received the new fabric and promptly cut it into strips, cut out the honeycomb shapes and glued the 138 honeycombs I needed to finish. I pulled out the block that was waiting to be finished and set the first honeycomb in place:

It didn't match!!

I was so disappointed. And wondering why I didn't check before I cut and glued all those honeycombs when I was already worried the colours wouldn't match!

When I was ready to face it, I tried to find a solution. With some research, a few different things made me suspicious that I mixed up the names. One of them being that fabric I couldn't "find" from April, but funny enough, at the same time I had more of grey 2 than I thought I should!

Now, having an idea of what the grey I needed was called (I suspected I had mixed up the names of grey 2 and 3 but couldn't be sure), I took samples of the fabric to a different quilt store. I don't normally shop there because it's far away, but I was in that city for something else and made the stop.

The shop doesn't have a particularly large section of solids, and they only had five greys. And only one of them was from the manufacturer I needed. And. It. Was. The. Colour. I. Needed!

These colours match!

I was very happy about that, let me tell you. I could have tried an online order, but finding it in person and being sure was so much better!

After that it was simple work to cut and glue another 138 honeycombs for the remainder of my blocks.

Here's a pic of all of the blocks hung together:

You might notice I have also started to sew some of the black connecting pieces between the blocks. And I have started some of the crosses too:

All the centers come from the same fabric, but there are different circle designs.

I'm using three different fabrics for the arms of the crosses, the three bottom ones in this picture:

The top one might be used in the final border.

In a couple places, I have sewn blocks together to get a feel for that:

The lower horizontal seam is sewn

The upper horizontal seam is sewn

I'm still not sure if I'm going to sew it all together in rows first, which is what I see other PotC makers doing online, or try to sew it into sections. Or maybe spiral out from the center.

For now, I'm sewing crosses, which go really fast compared to sashing a block (16" of seams to sew instead of 64"!) and considering how to finish the outside edge. The quilt is visible from where I sit and stitch, so it's easy to stare at it and ponder my options.

Lucy Boston Challenge "The Third Block"

Get ready for lots and lots of pretty pictures!

Not long ago, I noticed that Alewives Fabrics was going to have a Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses challenge.

Their Instagram feed caught my attention because each Sunday they sell kits of four fat quarters and show two examples of blocks you can make with them.

They ran the same challenge last year and I checked out the entries. The blocks looked great, and it seemed like it would be a lot of fun.


Here are the two sample blocks they teased us with for this challenge:

When the challenge started, they revealed the four fat quarters that made up the kit:

I ordered it as soon as it was for sale! For the challenge, you had to use only these fabrics in your block. (You didn't have to use all four, but you couldn't add additional fabric.) You could make as many as you wanted (or could) with that fabric.

Once I got the fabrics, I didn't want to cut into them before planning a way to maximize my fabrics so I scanned the fabrics with a honeycomb paper for size and scale.

I just scanned the portion of the fat quarters that fit on my printer/scanner, not the whole fat quarter, but it was enough to work with.

Here are some of the blocks that I designed with these scans in Photoshop:

Virtual Block 1

Virtual Block 2

Virtual Block 3

Virtual Block 4

Virtual Block 5

Virtual Block 6

Not surprisingly, I was completely obsessed with trying out the different options and variations. (Some of the examples above have versions A, B, and C!) Once I had the shape isolated from a fabric, I could rotate, mirror image and move it wherever and however I wanted.

When it got down to cutting actual fabric, these are the blocks that I managed to get out of the fat quarters:

"Real" block 1

"Real" block 2

"Real" block 3

"Real" block 4

Fortunately sewing the blocks together wasn't required to enter them in the challenge and that helped getting them all done before the deadline. :)

I loved following the hashtag #TheThirdBlock for the challenge and seeing everyone else's entries. I may have missed a couple, but I believe I captured a picture of all of them and here they are. As you look at them, see if you can pick out what fabric the various pieces come from.

(Note: If I posted your blocks and you would like to have them removed, please just email me at the address on the above right and I will do so right away.)

Two from @armdilly_o:

From @caffeinatedcotton:

Three from @colmurph2000:

Four blocks from @cottagethreads:

One from @ctmainiac22:

Here are five blocks from @e.e.botke:

And a whooping six blocks from @greta_evans4119:

*

*

From @katspawsvt:

Two from @mgstanton:

*

*

And two from @promqun75:

Three from @ritasiav:

And, finally, four from @stitchified:

*

*

Did you pick out a favourite? The people at Alewives Fabrics had a hard time too, because the day they were supposed to announce the winners, we saw this:

!! What?!!

Of course we could wait, since we had to....

Finally, the winners were announced:

Yay! They couldn't pick one winner so they decided to award two people the grand prize. I was so excited.

There were also three runner up winners. They're the blocks between the * marks above.

Can you believe all the different looks you can get from the same choice of fabrics? Since they're not sewn, I may not sew the blocks exactly as they're pictured above. (I'll try something from my stash in some of my blocks.) But you can be sure that these blocks will be added to my other blocks -- I almost have enough for my quilt top now!