I decided to throw my hat over the fence and get started on the Downton Abbey Double Wedding Ring quilt after all. Even though I had all my supplies assembled, the thought of cutting and piecing over a thousand pieces of fabric was so daunting to me I was scared to begin! I have been enjoying the smaller projects I've made over the last few weeks but I was beginning to feel restless without a proper quilt project to work on every day. I guess there's something about the process and the daily commitment that keeps me motivated.
I'm certainly glad I can go back to The Classic Double Wedding Ring with Gail Kessler Craftsy class whenever I need to because when I opened my tub of fabric from the kit I couldn't even remember what I had to do. I re-watched the lesson on the paper piecing method of creating the Double Wedding Ring and stopped the video at the point where Gail arranges all her arc fabrics in order. The arcs are paper pieced in 4 groups: each of the colour-ways (plum and blue) in both light to dark and dark to light. The simple first step for me was arranging the yards of fabric and then starching and pressing them in preparation for cutting. It's a small step in a very large project and that is the only way I will be able to tackle it: one step at a time. (My Grace Frame is excellent for keeping my pressed fabrics wrinkle free until I'm ready to cut them!)
Today I will start cutting and perhaps bag up each stack in a labelled baggie (a la Elizabeth Hartman, as I did for my Low Volume Tiles quilt) so that I can get to the paper piecing at a later time and the pieces will stay organized. Handling all the gorgeous fabric definitely helped me get in the mood to sew this quilt. I am going into it knowing it will take me a long time and I'm mentally prepared to not rush, piece carefully, and realize that I may get bored with the process now and then because of the size of the quilt (and therefore, the repetition required to assemble so many arcs!).
I think it will be a spectacular quilt and I am very excited now to challenge myself with this project. The Downton Abbey fabric is so pretty (and has a lovely hand) which makes it very easy to be enthusiastic about the whole thing! We'll see how it goes...
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