let me take you back.
the year is 2023. the buffalo bills are primed for a long and deep playoff run. our family is fully invested in nfl playoff football. but, there’s one problem for me. the games are so long and with so little actual action. so, i determine that i need a hand sewing project for the in between moments. suddenly, inspiration strikes.
i had been admiring the cherish english paper pieced pattern for some time, and i determined i would use it for the next installment of my epic anna maria horner quilt collection. (the first four are here: one, two, three, four). her fabrics feature both large and small prints, with beautiful florals, modern motifs, and geometric designs, making the cherish quilt block a perfect way to showcase them all.
i immediately got to work on the first prototype block. not counting the time to cut fabrics, the block took six hours total. that’s a lot of state farm commercials and half time shows.
i was pretty hooked. i made a few more blocks, cutting as i went. with no real plan for how big this was going to be or how the fabrics would be laid out in the end. i was only focused on using big prints in the centers and fussy cutting the diamonds. i also took into account how much of each fabric i possessed.
after seven blocks, i decided i needed to start planning ahead and cut out all of the pieces for the rest of the blocks. the plan was to make 25 whole blocks and 5 half blocks, with no repeating prints. also, if youre wondering what fussy cutting fabric is and whether or not it’s efficient and economical, the answer is: no. and no. (side note, i wasn’t sure how long i had been working on this quilt, and when i searched for the old pics of the blocks and found this one of my quilt room when it still had a homeschool chalkboard wall, i was stunned. in a few months from these pics, we gave the room a makeover, and that seems like forever ago.)
anyways. its no surprise at this point, but the bills did not win the superbowl that year. and when the football watching slowed, so did my progress. but, i still chugged along slowly. i would pack a few blocks to work on for family summer vacation road trips. i even fit some into my luggage when derek and i took an anniversary trip to iceland. they have seen two more bills seasons, filling in the gaps between josh allen trucking dudes and making superman plays.
eventually (november of last year), i had a stack of blocks, ready to layout and sew together. for my birthday weekend, i took a solo camping trip, and thanks to my neverending injuries, i was unable to hike, so i sewed instead. and then kept on sewing. and before i knew it, i had an actual quilt top.
and then. i was stuck.
i debated hand quilting it. the entire thing was hand pieced after all. but, this would take me another three years. i knew i couldn’t just slap on one of my usual quilting treatments. this thing deserves better. so, for the first time in my quilty life, i sent it off to a professional long armer. gina boone, national award winning long armer, gave it a custom quilting treatment, and knocked it out of the park. furthermore, she told me “this is the best epp quilt i’ve ever quilted” so i’m basically feeling pretty damn proud of myself for that.
all that was left for me was the binding. i strolled into sewingly yours, picked out an amh fabric that wasn’t already in the quilt, came home, made the binding, attached it to the front of the quilt, and decided i hated it. ripped it out, strolled back into sewingly yours on the same day, bought a bunch more of the same binding fabric, but this time came home and cut my strips on the bias (diagonally) and i immediately knew i had made the right call.
i absolutely love this one. so. so. so. much. once again, i enlisted the services of the middle kid for photography assistance, and you can see how that went. (it was the same day as the scrappy smurfy green and blue quilt photoshoot, so things were getting silly).
not sure if you can make out the quilting in these blocks…
i took a million pics. i love it so much.
all told, i think it’s got at least 200 hours of hand sewing. i didn’t keep track of the fabric cutting time.
there’s 134 different anna maria horner fabrics.
i won’t tell you the cost of the custom quilting except to say that it’s about $.05 per square inch.
so anytime someone asks me would i ever consider selling them, just know that it would take about $5000 for me to part with this one. and i still think that’s a steal.
also. shout out to derek, who, when i was shopping for all of the paper pieces to make this thing, researched a cameo silhouette and helped figure out all of the shapes i needed and printed me my own paper pieces. 🙂