More progress on Dutch friends’ quilt: blocks up on design wall!

This is one of my very favorite steps in the process – getting the blocks up on the wall.  It gives a pretty durn good idea of what the quilt top will look like when it’s all stitched together. After that’s all done, the borders will be added.

The quilt was MUCH larger than my existing design wall (the finished size will be 96” x 112” – a bit larger than a California King), so I tacked up several large additional pieces of fabric to hold all ‘dem little blocks.

I’ve got all the nine-patches (3.5” x 3.5”) completed – YAY! All 418 of ‘em. Then there are 418 squares, same size to bridge each set of nine-patches.

The next step is to take down each vertical row in neat little stacks and sew all the blocks together!

Photo above taken with no flash, incandescent lighting supplemented with daylight. Photo below supplemented further with my big Ott-Light floor lamp (full-spectrum).

You can ALMOST see the entire thing in the two shots below. Click to enlarge any photo.

My readers who are quilters may like to know the following behind-the-scenes details. My permanent design wall is made by Block Butler. Then I added a big piece of flannel-backed tablecloth yardage from Jo-Ann Fabric. For the top three rows of blocks, I filled in the top with a long strip of yellow gauze yardage and the bottom three rows are backed by four flannel pillowcases, folded lengthwise. Phew!

I love how the little blocks magically float and flutter on the sticky wall:

Below are four shots showing the progression of blocks from the center out to the right edge. Click on any image to enlarge.

Click here and here and here if you’d like to see the earlier progress on this quilt. And click here to see where it all started.