No Passport Required (Part 1)

I recently completed a Trip Around the World quilt. It is about as big as the world (112" x 122") and nearly as heavy! :)

This project took a lot of organization and planning, so I'm breaking the post about it into two parts.

I've wanted to do a Trip Around the World for a long time. However, unlike most of the patterns I found, I wanted to do it on-point. (I know--I'm crazy!) I found a pattern, not so much for the instructions on assembly, but for counts of the squares I needed and for planning the size.

The pattern is from Everyday Quilts designer Sandra Boyle. Because she is an Australian designer who doesn't have a business website, I went through broderie on Etsy to find the pattern. Lizzie, the shop owner in Melbourne, Australia, carries many Everyday Quilts patterns, and her shipping charges are very reasonable. The pattern is entitled Square Dance.

Click the photo for information.

As I mentioned, I wanted the pattern, in part, for the cutting instructions. It outlines how many squares of each of the thirty-one different fabrics you need to cut. I realize that I probably could have figured this out on my own, but having the list made it so much easier!

The pattern indicated that the quilt would be 65" x 71". Because I wanted to feature the prints with international themes, I decided to cut my squares larger than the pattern indicated, so more of the individual prints would be visible. Lots of math later (remember this quilt is on-point, so it takes diagonal thinking), I found that if I cut the prints the size I wanted to, the quilt would finish at around 109" x 128" (my final measurement was pretty close to that). Okay--that's HUGE--but to get the effect I wanted, it had to be done.

I needed to decide the order of the fabrics for the layout, so I pulled out what I planned to use and started lining them up.

Fabrics 1-9

Fabrics 10-21

Fabrics 22-30 (plus the yellow print for the setting triangles)

I tried to take both color and value into account in the arrangement. I also had to think of how much of each fabric I had. The outside rows take much more fabric than the inner ones.

I then further organized it as shown here.

I glued swatches of fabric on a file folder labeled by number.

I cut the number of squares of each fabric as indicated on the pattern and placed them in plastic bags labeled with their numbers in an open bin for ease of access.

All of this before I sewed a stitch! Looking back on the process, I'm glad I took plenty of time to get everything ready--it made the assembly so much easier.

Part 2 can be found HERE.