Stay at Home Robin

Ok ladies (and gents!) - the moment you have all been waiting for (ok, SOME of you have been waiting for it, I know). The start of the Stay at home Robin. This year's Robin (and yes, that implies if this works for me there will be another year...) will be a wall-hanging 16x18" (approx 40x55cm) in size, and will run for 12 months. The first 7 months will involve piecing - sometimes one piece, sometimes two and once, three - but nothing bigger than 5x15" and of course, there's no need for the pieces to actually be pieced themselves - they can be partly or completely single pieces of fabric. As you will have seen from the robins I've been posting on my blog recently, the finished quilts work best when there is a combination of pieced sections and unpieced sections - but obviously, this is your quilt, so it's up to you. The last 5 months will involve doing something else to your pieced top - up to, in the final month, binding it and putting a hanging sleeve (if desired) and label on it.

I will be making my own little quilt each month as we go along (not working ahead) so I might not have my example ready with the first of the month's instructions, but I will also be making a virtual quilt, which I WILL have ready for the post with the instructions. When you have done your month's work, either send me a photo, email me with a link to your blog or comment on my blog to say that you've done it, and I will add you to the page (tab at the top of my blog) for the robin.

And then, we can watch each other's progress and see how we are getting along - hopefully, we will have a lovely group of little quilts to show at the end.

Right then, so the first month's instructions are: start with a block which is 6" square (finished - so your block should measure 6.5" square before you sew it to anything else) (this can be pieced or plain - personally, for the first month, I recommend pieced!).



Here's my "virtual" quilt block for the starter - and just to give you an idea of the shape of the overall piece, here's what my "quilt" looks like so far




We are not putting a border on our quilts, but I have showed the border with the EQ layout, because it was hard to see what I was doing without it - and it gives an idea of how your block will fit in to the overall scheme of the quilt, which might help you with things like choice of scale, etc.

Later in July, I'll be showing my actual quilt block - once I figure out what I want to do, that is - it won't be a fabric representation of the virtual quilt, though...