Farm Gal’s Folly (aka – the insanity project)

I bought the Winter 2008 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting for the quilt on the front cover.  I have always wanted to make that quilt.  

Then a week or so ago, I decided it would be great to make matching quilts for my ladies at work (there’s six of us that are very close, we have become good friends in addition to being coworkers) as a Christmas present.  I needed something fairly simple, but still wanted the Christmas look.  Ta Da!  The Fly Away Home quilt from the cover (designed by one of the Fig Tree Quilts designers)!  I made my decision after checking with just one of the girls (who had also been my sorority sister in college), who promised to keep it a secret.  

Here are the details:  one quilt contains 348 flying geese units.  That means for 6 quilts, I need 2,088 flying geese.  I also need border fabric, binding fabric, and batting for 6 throw size quilts.  And to make them special, I decided to add a row of variable stars as signature blocks, so each lady will have all 6 signatures (her own plus the other 5).  So I need fabric for the back of 6 quilts as well.  I was able to shop my stash, but only found a piddling yard or so of fabric (2 FQs plus a BIG scrap of red fabric and some cream scraps) that would work.  This means I’ll have to accumulate another 79 yards or so of fabric.  I found 2 FQs at JoAnn’s and bought them with my 40% off coupons, plus I got a yard of cream fabric for 30% off.  So far I have spent $5.44 total on fabric. 

 

My plan is to work on this as leader-enders with a couple of other quilting projects in addition to piecing a couple geese a day.  Hopefully that will help it go more quickly and less stressfully than forcing myself to work on it as my only project.  When I did the math, giving myself until Dec. 1 to complete the quilts and leaving 60 days in there for quilting and binding, I have 136 days to sew.  That amounts to about 15 flying geese per day.  If I set aside a dedicated hour for sewing, that’s not bad, and on the weekends I usually try to get a couple hours a day in, so I think I can do it.  Now that I’ve committed, I have to!  I may lose my mind in the process, but if I can pull it off, it will be great! 

 

I’m going to put a stats box up on the sidebar for those who want to keep track of my progress.  Hopefully it will help keep me motivated as well.

Here's the first goose . . .

. . . and I'm stitching an extra seam to make little HST's as well.  I'll probably make a secondary project out of them later on.