Welcome to Week One of the Greenhouse Quilt Along

This week we are cutting our background fabric and making our plant pots. This way we will be all set to plant our plants in their pots as we quilt along over the next couple of months.

Let’s talk about the background cutting first:

Looking at the cutting list can be quite overwhelming. Take it one step at a time and check off each cut on your list. Watching your check marks line up will help reduce the overwhelm. Splitting up the cutting will help too. I cut the left column of the cutting list one one day and the right column on the next day.

Labeling and organization will be critical here:

Often I skip labeling my fabric pieces but in this quilt I strongly recommend labeling each stack of cuts with the name given in the pattern. You can use Ziplock bags and write your labels on the bag if you want to. I am trying to cut down on how much plastic I am using so I am just keeping them laid out in baskets with sticky notes. (As long as none of my kids get to these all will fine.)

Plant Pots:

I followed the instructions and created cutting guides with template plastic. If you don’t have template plastic you could print the two pages with the cutting guides on card stock (or photocopy onto card stock if you have the paper pattern) and cut them out. You will still want to use your acrylic cutting ruler because neither the template plastic nor the card stock will hold up the way an acrylic ruler will to repeated cuts. This is also safer for your fingers.

I am thankful that Elizabeth has allowed for trimming the plant pots to size so there is a little bit of wiggle room when piecing the background pieces to the sides of the pots.

I think it’s a good idea to get all the background cutting and plant pots finished first so we can be finished with that and can put our vertical rows (or columns) together as we go.

What’s coming up?

Next week is vertical row one!

If you get finished your plant pots and you want to work ahead you can get your plant fabrics cut and labelled for row one. If you haven’t already sorted your fabrics into groups according to Elizabeth’s fabric placement guide please go ahead and do that. Visit the main Greenhouse Quilt Along page for information on where to download the fabric placement guide.

Why are we sewing in order of vertical columns?

Originally I thought we would sew one type of plant each week but I felt it would be more difficult to keep the colours and fabrics organized for those of us creating the same colour spectrum as the original quilt. That is why I have decided to organize our quilt along into vertical rows. This way we have less plants to sew each week and a little more time to finish our quilt tops too.

Share your progress:

Are you sewing along? Leave a comment and let me know. Post your plant pots in the hashtag #greenhouseqal on Instagram and/or share your progress in the Daydreams of Quilts Facebook group.