After seeing several comments on my photos on Facebook, calling it a “woven” courthouse steps pattern, I decided that was better than shaded, so Woven Lanterns Courthouse Steps it is!
I went on a week-long quilting retreat with some friends at the beginning of June. This became the purpose for all of the days and days of strip sets cutting.
The first (half-)day was a Sunday. We drove to Becky’s Barn, got everyone unloaded and settled in, and started sewing. After much deliberation regarding which sets to use and exactly how to use them (even though I had mocked up the design in Electric Quilt), I created my first two blocks.
By the way, those are not pieced strips under the blocks – they’re just strip sets of the alternating fabrics in their increasing sizes, clipped together.
By the end of the evening, I had created three more. I was anxious to see how the next row would start, so I made the first block in row two before I finished the rest of the blocks of the first row.
I got into a groove, and I was glad I’d brought two design boards with me.
I staggered the block creation so I wouldn’t be confused as to which blocks went with which strip sets, sewing two at a time.
On Monday, I started early and ended late, and that’s pretty much how the rest of the retreat went for me. I was a woman on a mission. And I decided that I needed to go ahead and place all my dark fabric sets in the approximate locations on the design boards. To this point I had been just deciding as I went, which took some time for each block.
By the end of Tuesday, I was really cooking along with another row plus one extra block complete. And I decided that pre-planning was a really good idea. So I pinned out all the rest of the sets in their approximate locations.
Wednesday was devoted to another reason for going on this particular retreat – one of the ladies was showing us how to make a bag with metal stays (the Boxy Tote), taking us through it step by step. I had pre-cut and pre-quilted most of my pieces, but I still had a couple of things to do that I had forgotten in my preparations. After a full day of wrestling, we finally finished our bags.
Thursday was back to sewing on my blocks. I really pushed, and made even more progress with 14 blocks completed!
Friday was the last full day of our retreat – we were planning on leaving sometime Saturday morning. It was down to the wire, and I couldn’t believe it when I sewed the final block and placed it on the wall. It was after 8 p.m. Whew!
And here we are holding it up a week later, fully pieced together.
I’m so happy with it. Ready to have it quilted by my quilter, and ready to do something at a bit slower pace.