Color Catcher Quilt Along – Week 1

Hello! Welcome to Week 1 of the Color Catcher Quilt Along. Thank you so much to everyone who has bought the pattern. I can’t properly express how much I appreciate your support. Ready to have some fun? Still need the pattern? You can find it here.

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Like most projects, this one has a boring part. For me, it is cutting the scraps. I love fondling my fabric, and remembering which project they all came from, where I got them, and seeing how they play with their pals in the scrap bin. I like this for about 10 minutes. Then I’m bored and want to get stitching. Unfortunately, the process for this quilt is much more successful when all of the pieces are cut out at once.

I have been going through my bin of Island Batik scraps to finally use them up and start reducing my stash of print fabrics. I take each piece, and hold it over my AccuQuilt die. (I’m using the rectangles from my 8″ Qube.) If the piece is large enough for at least one rectangle, it goes into the good pile. If not, into the too small pile for later processing.

Once I have a decent pile, I press the pieces, then cut out my rectangles. AccuQuilt is my favorite, but a ruler and rotary cutter will work just fine if that is what you have. I guess scissors would work, too, although my wrist aches to think about that.

Starch or no starch? That is up to you. I won’t be starching my batiks, but if I was using something softer, I probably would give it a spritz of spray starch. For those of you who do the soak and hang up to dry, bless you. That’s a lot of work.

I’ve got a video here for those of you who enjoy listening more than reading. I like to babble at the camera, so enjoy!

Final details – if you want an even spread of colors, you will need 90 each of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet. I actually end up with piles of pink, red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, grapey purple and plummy purple. (Can you tell I’m a real artist?) I try to make my sorting choices quickly, rather than agonizing. There will be time to agonize later, never fear. My piles won’t be even, but once I get through my bin, if anything is dramatically low, I will supplement with other fabrics from my stash. I suspect I’ll be shopping the yellow and green bins at some point this week.

I’m planning to do a live session tomorrow, at 11 am eastern time. I’ll have it on my YouTube channel. I will be doing some pressing, cutting and sorting of my colors. Feel free to pop on and ask questions. You know I love to talk about quilting.

My YouTube Channel

I’ll pop back in Friday with my final sort of color piles, amounts of rectangles and a brief chat about what to expect next week.

Oh, and I have a prize for one lucky participant. I have a Cricut Easy Press Mini that I will be giving away, probably in Week 2. These little irons are so fun, and I like them better than the one that is so popular everywhere. It has an auto shut off feature, and the handle never gets hot.

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Go cut some fabric! But first, if you are so inclined, share this image on your social media. Help me get the word out about my quilt along.