Palooza Top Finished

Here's the now completed Patchwork Palooza top. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and now I'm glad I used the navy blue as the background.

Friend Jaye asked for a report on my experience at trying out chunking. I'd say it worked out pretty well overall. There were definitely a few spots where I had to stop and check I was sewing the right bit to the right part. So, I'd say it requires a little more or maybe just a different focus. Once I'd sewn the top three and then the bottom three sections together, it was just one more long seam across the middle. All the intersections matched up very well. (or well enough for me)

Now to decide on whether to add on a border or not.

Chunks of Love

 Happy Valentine's Day! 💝💞💘💗💖💕👄mwah!👄💝💞💘💗💖💕

Details from a Valentine's Day quilt that I made in 2010, I quilted in "All you need is love love love"

Well, here's the Patchwork Palooza quilt, all chunked. Be-Chunked? Chunk-ified? Or just plain Chunky?

Or maybe it's just time for some Chunky Monkey ice cream? (which is gluten free btw). 

It's now sitting up there in just six pieces, all are two blocks wide, three are three blocks high, and three are four blocks high. I'm thinking I'll sew the fours together, the threes together and then there will be one long seam in the middle. And then I have to consider if it needs a 3" or 4" border of the navy blue on the outside. And what to put on the back.

Palooza Chunks

 

Final starting point picture that I'm working from as I assemble the Patchwork Palooza quilt top.

Trying the quilt chunking method that friend Jaye uses for quilt top assembly. Here's how it looks once the first two chunks were done. These are big blocks, so not a lot of real estate getting uncovered.

Four chunks done, and only two more columns to go. Had to quit because my wrist was aching from so much ironing. I can't wear my wrist brace and use my Oliso iron normally. The sensor in the handle doesn't work well without skin contact to put the feet down. I think I'll switch off the auto feet and use the iron rest that I have while wearing my brace to do the rest.

Palooza Almost Top

 

At Sew Day, I also sewed all of the cornerstone/sashings onto the Patchwork Palooza blocks. By the end of the day, my right wrist was really tired (and I had my brace on too!) so I packed them all up without pressing the seams. As I unpacked everything from that bag today, I ironed those seams, and the blocks as well. Then even with them grouped together in columns, I tried to arrange everything the same way as I'd had it originally. I got pretty close, but thankfully I noticed the boo-boo before doing any more sewing.

Then I remembered, there was the left hand side of the quilt top-to-be, those sashing/cornerstones hadn't gotten sewn on. 

So now that all ironing is done, I'm nearly ready to sew this top together! Except for a little more rearranging

Arranging Time

 

Another day, another short sewing session so I don't over-do it with my wrist. It's feeling a lot better, but I'm trying to be careful. Thankfully, I found that I had already cut out the majority of the remaining Patchwork Palooza sashing strips at Sew Day earlier this month. That made it easy to sew the cornerstones that I cut out yesterday.

The pile all ready to be ironed.

Nice and flat.

All ironed and ready to go up on the wall with the blocks.

Now it's arranging and re-arranging time. Looks like I made some extras? So that means I have more flexibility and can take out the cornerstones that are either too prominent or distracting.

Cornerstones

 

After a few days off, I couldn’t resist doing a little *something* in my sewing room, and so I cut out the twenty six remaining cornerstones for the Patchwork Palooza quilt. My wrist was feeling good enough for that at least. And then instead of cutting the corresponding background strips and sewing them together, I quit for the day. Don’t want to re-injure myself.

Palooza Sashing

 

A great Bamq Sew Day, and I brought along all 42 of the Patchwork Palooza blocks and background fabric for the sashing. It took a while to cut out all the sashing pieces. I sewed one piece on the right hand side of each block, including the chain blocks.

Then I moved onto working with the cornerstones, the ones I'd cut out months ago were 2.5" but the pattern calls for 2". Just a little trimming.

I sewed one cornerstone to the end of a piece of sashing. Now to cut out some more cornerstone pieces.

This is the coloring page for the Patchwork Palooza quilt, and I dutifully colored mine in as I made the blocks over all the weeks. Which is pretty useless actually. This is more for when one is planning out the arrangement of colors in your quilt. I also could printed out by accident the quilt design plan, which I also didn't follow. It's going to be my own choices from here on out as far as where each block ends up.

Homeward Bound

 

Last block for Patchwork Palooza! It's an easy Log Cabin, renamed "Homeward Bound" for this quilt.

I put purple in the center, because that's our house with the purple trim. Finally I got to use the matchstick fabric, it's really a challenging print.

Here's a view of the whole group of blocks as called out in the quilt design. I will be moving them around I think.  But now on to making the sashing and cornerstones and get to assembling.

Crosswalking

To keep motivated on the Patchwork Palooza front, after my recent catch-up, I decided to put them all up on the wall "in order" with the setting blocks (but not the sashing/cornerstones yet). Only two blocks left to make, and I want to make sure this scrappy thing is staying scrappy *enough* for me. Nothing says the blocks have to be in this arrangement, it's just the one the pattern designers came up with.

I did have the idea to switch this picture over to black and white, and wow, what difference this makes. The really hot one in the lower left corner is almost the same weight as the setting chain blocks.

In order to stay "caught up" with Patchwork Palooza, I jumped right on it and started making the newest one from this week, block number 20 (!), named Crosswalk. This was my initial fabric placement,

but I thought it was worth looking at alternatives. Much better.

I had to leave myself some breadcrumbs, ie labeling all the fabrics after swapping them around so many times.

The labels worked, and the block went together pretty easily.

 Just one more block to go...and the sashing/cornerstones and assembly of course.

Definitely too much of this one blue fabric down in the lower left corner, so those blocks will get sprinkled around the quilt I think, maybe in all four corners.

Market Day

 

Time to get all caught up with the most recently released Patchwork Palooza block, Market Day. Four fabrics, bright and right in the middle range of light to dark.

This was my original idea for the color arrangement. And yes, I didn't have quite enough of the orange with the little star/cross-hatch.

I liked this one a bit better.

There it is, number 19 all done. And just in time for this week's next block.

There it is! Seen with all the others way down at the bottom, it's still glowing though. It might be the "hottest" of all the block so far.

Guiding Star

Now on to the eighteenth Patchwork Palooza block, which is named Guiding Star. Yes, I'm using the Bloc-Loc 2.5" HST ruler again.

Making the four-at-time version of Flying Geese. This is what I call the "Big Chomper" stage.

These turned out to be quite oversized, but they trimmed down easily with the 2.5"x4.5" Flying Geese Bloc-Loc ruler.

This might be my favorite block so far. I really love this fabric combination. Sometimes your scraps really do surprise you.

Here are all 18 of these beauties hung up together with the chain blocks. Do they look matchy-matchy? Nope, not exactly. But is it close enough for me to "somewhat coordinated"? Yes.

Starlight Path

On to making the next Patchwork Palooza block, this one is called Starlight Path. I don't know if I'll achieve any path making or twinkly starlight in my fabric choices or not. But either way I'm marking my solid with a white pencil and getting ready to make lots of HSTs

Now to trim all the HSTs down to size, handy-dandy 2.5" Bloc-Loc ruler comes out to help me out once again. Along with the little spinning cutting mat.

Playing around with arranging the HSTs and the squares.

I turned a couple of the square around and liked how their fabrics looked next to their neighbors.

There it is, the seventeenth block in the Patchwork Palooza quilt.

Safe Harbour

 

Another Patchwork Palooza block is done, it's the sixteenth. This one is named Safe Harbour so I thought the tree/bee fabric in the center would work. I really like how the first center triangle's fabric design swirls around the center square. More teeny tiny HSTs™ to add to my envelope that's getting a bit full now.

Patchwork Palooza Catch-Up Parts

 

After a few weeks away from my fabric scrapbox, I'm back to assembling the three blocks that I missed out on making for Patchwork Palooza. Blocks 16, 17, 18 are ready to be sewn.

Palooza Fifteen

This is the last block I'm catching up on making and posting for Patchwork Palooza. And it's a very different and interesting design. I have to say that I'm glad that I used that dramatic fabric 

I really love that Tula Pink tiger, so I'm happy to get to feature him again. And of course on the side: teeny tiny HSTs™

There's all fifteen of them together. I think its a good mixture so far.