Not to get too hyperbolic about my own work, but I really love this week’s block. This is approximately 80% design, 20% my own colour choices.

The way this block is put together, in two colours, begs for high-contrast and a little bit of drama. In the pattern, the sample is done in red and white, which I like a lot. However, since I am going for a pretty fixed palette, I decided to use this block as an opportunity to play with contrast and value – using two shades of the same colour to highlight the pinwheel and shadow effect of the block.

I’m glad I saved this block until a few months in, at a time when my accuracy in matching points and seams is pretty consistent. This block does best with everything lined up just so.

This block marks week nineteen of my pony club quilt. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s 35% of the way through all of the hand piecing, which is a pretty big deal!

This week’s block was a pretty straightforward one. I got started on it much earlier in the week, after getting a bit behind with the block for the week before. It also had many fewer pieces and didn’t require any ironing until the very end, which sped the process up quite a bit.

I did have a bit of a fussy cutting failure with this, though, which I didn’t realize until it was mostly done. I wanted to use the centre block to showcase one of the swallows on this purple fabric – I love the way it looks like random swirls and the birds are a little hidden, and I thought the centre square of this block would be a good place to showcase that.

Unfortunately, I centred my template incorrectly – I caught most of the bird, but the beak got cut off in the seam allowance when I sewed the centre piece to the rest of the block.

It’s not a huge deal – the block still looks great from far away, and I love how the purple shines against the black-and-white background – but definitely a learning experience.

I also had a bit of spare time this weekend, so I spread out all of my finished blocks together for the first time.

I was surprised at how little space they actually take up, relative to the time I’ve spent stitching them. Nineteen blocks sounds like a lot, but each of them is only 8.5″ square – if I decided to finish this quilt next week, it would only be 35″ by 40″.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how much I like everything laid out together. Whenever I sit down with my Big Stack ‘O’ Fat Quarters to choose fabrics for a new block, I’m really careful about using the same fabric too many times, or repeating backgrounds and combinations. I want the blocks to work together, but to each be unique in terms of fabric and composition. (At least, as much as I can while still being conservative about how many different prints I put into this.)

There is definitely an overarching theme of tan and navy coming through, but I am pleased with my choice to add some more purples and bright blues to the mix – it keeps things from being too neutral, and the overall effect is still pleasing and not too colour-busy for me. I can see a couple of blocks where I repeated backgrounds, but in general each one is unique, even if certain fabrics are repeated a few times.

This quilt has also been a really nice exercise in perseverance and patience. Through knitting, I’ve had some experience at working on something big and having it come together slowly, but usually I let my own inspiration be a guide to how I pace myself. I’ll work on a project nonstop for a few weeks, then let it sit for a while before coming back to it.

Working on this quilt the way I have been, doing a little bit of stitching every week alongside the other projects I’m working on, has definitely been a stretch. I’m pretty proud of having stuck with it for the first four and a half months, and now it feels like it’s a lot more settled into my weekly crafting routine.