The Generations Quilt: Year One Project Meeting

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

The snow has continued to accumulate around my house and though there are still several weeks of Autumn left, it’s feeling a lot like Winter has arrived!

I can’t say I’m thrilled that the cold has set in, but the snow certainly makes the world seem crisp and bright. And Meara’s exuberant reception of the snow has made it all that much more exciting for me as well!

Despite all the snow that fell over the weekend, Mom and I were still able to make our way to Grandma’s house for a visit. There was a little while we weren’t sure we’d be able to make it, but our visit and our Generations Quilt project meeting went just as well as we could have hoped!

If you’d like a little background on the Generations Quilt project before we get into this update, check out my introductory post from when the project was first released last Autumn and the summary of our first project meeting from early last Winter!

Year One Project Meeting

It has been just over a year since we first started working on the Generations Quilt project, so I wanted to check in and see how everyone is doing!

I wasn’t totally sure what to expect going into this meeting. I know that both Mom and Grandma have been working on their Generations blocks, but also have lots of other projects and events in their schedules. And because I’m the only one sharing my block progress publicly, they haven’t been tracking their block progress quite as closely as I have.

But one thing I do know is that no one has completed all of their blocks yet.

With that in mind, we weren’t planning to discuss any broad aesthetic or logistical topics surrounding the finished quilts, instead, we focused on block progress. We started the weekend off with a count of everyone’s completed blocks and of the pieced applique shapes that just needed to be sewn onto background fabric.

This count was taken the morning of 19 November, and since we continued to work on blocks throughout the rest of the weekend and into this week, it’s no longer completely accurate. However, it will give you an idea of the overall progress made on this project throughout the first year!

VA’s Block Progress

Starting off with my own progress; I had completed 12 Dresden Plate blocks and 15 Six Pointed Star blocks. In addition to that, I had 2 pieced Dresden appliques and 2 pieced star appliques.

Currently, I’m continuing to piece the blue, yellow, and brown Dresden Plate blocks that I’ve been sharing over the past few weeks.

I’ve been having a lot of fun working with such a bright and cheerful combination of colours and really love the subtle effect of the marbled prints. I still need to select a background fabric to use with these blocks and haven’t yet decided whether all of them should match or if I might use a wider variety of backgrounds.

Looking at the overall trends of my fabric choices for the Generations Quilt blocks, I’ve experimented with a wide variety of different prints and colour combinations. For the Dresden Plates, I’ve tended to embrace a scrappy and random fabric placement, but with an overall colour scheme that ties the whole block together.

For the Six Pointed Stars, I’ve taken several different approaches. Some of my blocks follow the scrappier approach of the Dresden Plates, some use the more traditional layout of two alternating prints, but my favourite ones seem to be the blocks that use a single, large print fabric for the whole star.

I’ve also shifted my block making approach since the project started last year. Initially, I was making blocks one at a time and using a variety of different colour schemes and fabric combinations. Over time, I’ve shifted to a batch piecing approach; I cut several blocks from a single selection of fabric and piece them together before moving onto a different colour scheme.

I’ve been really enjoying the batch piecing approach, it feels like I make faster progress when I piece blocks this way. I don’t know if the batch blocks will end up staying together in one quilt or if they will be mixed into multiple quilts, but I’ll be excited to see where they do end up!

With my current goal to make 20 of each block pattern, I’m about 70% done. However, I have been thinking of increasing my total goal. My blocks are the most different from the overall group, so having a wider variety of mine to choose from might make piecing the completed quilts a little easier. I won’t officially adjust this goal until I’ve met the original 40 blocks, so I’ll think more about this later.

Mom’s Block Progress

Moving along to the next person, Mom had made 8 Dresden Plate blocks and 8 Six Pointed Star blocks. She had another 4 Dresden and 4 Star appliques pieced.

The blocks Mom has been making for the Generations project have typically used fabric from her past projects. This way, she can work with colour combinations she already knows and loves and she is reminded of the people she’s made quilts for in the past!

To piece her Dresdens, Mom tends to take a very organized approach and arranges her pieces into beautiful repeating patterns, although she has made a few scrappier blocks as well.

Mom also uses a mix of scrappy and patterned piecing for her Six Pointed Star blocks. For some, she makes all six points different, for others, she uses three unique prints and alternates them in a pattern.

The pictures I’ve shared here were taken throughout the last year, so many of the incomplete blocks I’ve shown have now been appliqued onto backgrounds. Mom has been using white and off-white backgrounds since those help to make the bold and bright colours stand out!

At the time of our count, Mom was about 40% of the way to her goal of 40 blocks, and after reading my Autumn goal of completing a Generations block every month, Mom has decided to take on that goal as well!

I’ve really loved seeing what she makes and I can’t wait to see what her next blocks will look like!

Grandma’s Block Progress

The final person at the meeting and our host was my Grandma. She had completed 9 Dresden Plate blocks and 0 Six Pointed Star blocks. But she has been busy piecing applique units and had an additional 2 Dresden appliques and 11 Star appliques ready for backgrounds!

Cutting the fabric is one of the more challenging parts of the quilt making process for Grandma since moving between the ironing board and the cutting table isn’t always kind to her back. When we come for visits, Mom and I try to help her cut pieces so she has blocks to work on while we aren’t around.

Usually, Grandma picks the fabric and marks the shapes, Mom presses the fabric, and I cut all the pieces. This assembly line method lets us get lots of fabric cut really quickly so we can move along to sewing by the afternoon.

Grandma has been taking a fairly scrappy approach to fabric selection, using prints from past projects and small pieces she’d like to use up. While piecing her Dresden Plates, she arranged the assortment of scrappy pieces into an ombre pattern so the colours flowed beautifully from one part of the Dresden to the next.

For her Six Pointed Star blocks, she took a more organized approach and used two prints in an alternating pattern. She typically paired a busy floral with a solid or subtle tone-on-tone print.

Some of her colour combinations with these blocks really surprised me! There were some that I would have never thought to combine that go together really well!

Grandma’s personal goal was a little lower than mine and Mom’s; she was aiming to make 10 blocks of each pattern, 20 blocks total. When counting just the completed blocks, she’s only 45% of the way to completion, but once the completed applique shapes have been sewn onto backgrounds, she will have surpassed that goal.

I hope once she gets there, she will continue to piece more blocks for the project. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from her blocks, but they’ve really amazed me so far and I would love to see more of them!

Great Grandmother’s Blocks

The last member of this collaboration is my Great Grandmother. She passed away many years ago, so she won’t be making any new blocks, but as it turns out, she contributed more than I had originally thought!

While counting each of our own blocks, we counted through the blocks we each had that had been made by Great Grandmother. I had 1 Dresden and 1 Star, Mom had 17 Dresdens and 17 Stars, and Grandma had 10 Dresdens and no Star blocks.

This means we have 28 Dresden Plate blocks and 18 Six Pointed Stars. Initially, we thought there were 20 of each, which leads me to believe we may have misplaced a few Star blocks, but we have more Dresden Plate blocks than expected. Having all those extra blocks will give us a lot of room to experiment with block layout, setting, and combinations of colours!

It has been amazing to see everyone’s progress over the past year! There have been some surprises both in style and quantity of blocks created, and I think we’ve learned a lot about the way each of us approach colour selection and fabric layout. I can’t wait to see how these blocks continue to come together and how they’ll look when combined!

Friends, if you have any questions or comments about the Generations Quilt project, feel free to reach out in the comments below or by email through my contact page! You can also follow my progress on this project on Instagram @v.a.fibre.arts!

Mom, Grandma, and I have plans to meet again before the New Year, so expect another update on the Generations Quilt project soon!

Until Then Friends, Happy Quilting!

~VA