Irish Chain Variation Quilt Project

This is the LAST project before the quilting stage and then the Final Exam! I've almost made it through the entire first year of Quilter's Academy.

I'm very excited to get to do this one. I've been wanting to do a fun scrappy quilt and now, it's here! This is the quilt as shown as the assignment.

Harriet's Irish Chain Variation Quilt

I spent a whole evening going through my scrap bins hunting for anything that looked like it would work. You must remember that I didn't have a stash when we started this book. I was pleased to find that my newly acquired stash provided me almost enough pieces to do each block with a different fabric! The assignment said there could be up to 36 different fabrics, if desired.  I came up with about 32!  I bought 1/4 yard on sale last weekend of 4 different fabrics anticipating the need.  If I had only taken the time to plan I could have ended up with all I needed, but I was working on something else at the time.

Here the fabrics are laid out together in a way I thought I would pair them up. I'm not sure how to go about scrappy.  There were no instructions as to how to match fabrics. Do we pick fabrics that obviously go together by color, or can we mix things as odd as a total scrappy?  These fabrics just pulled at me, so I didn't give it a whole lot of thought after I chose what I liked.

What do YOU think? Will they work?

I decided to do one test block before I cut up all my pieces.  I found more errors in the book!
Row 2 & 4 need 2 square 2x2's (not just 1) and Row 3 needs one 2x2 of dark (not mentioned).  Here is my test block. Believe it or not, I'm STILL dealing with finding my 1/4" seam guide line.  Now that I've moved my ruler over, I can move over my guide. I like that, because it is further away from the needle, but it's been a battle.  I hope I won't have to battle in the next book.

This was using fabric I had plenty of, in case it didn't turn out. But, I think it turned out just fine :)

Now, I think I will start cutting all the pieces for all the blocks. If I were to do the pressing, prepping, cutting and then piecing one block at a time it would take weeks.  Some of the scraps are not straight grain cut, so I'm not sure how I'm going to align the fabric before cutting. It will take some thought!

Anyway, this step will take a while. I'll update when I get there!