Dutch Quilt Update

I am still plugging away on my Dutch quilt.  This is the quilt kit that I bought at Den Haan & Wagenmakers in Amsterdam.  My goal is to make the entire quilt by hand, and it is a three year project.  I just passed the two-year mark (which also happens to be my nineteenth wedding anniversary.)  According to my schedule, I was supposed to have finished all 508 blocks by then so that I could start joining them into the quilt top.  How did I do, you ask?  Well, I finished 405.  That is certainly a big number, but as I have mathematicians in my family, I could figure out that I was still 103 blocks short.  This leaves me with four options:

1.  Extend the deadline.  I won’t be going with this, because I know having a deadline will make me get it done.  I will probably be putting on binding the day before my anniversary next year, but I’m keeping the deadline.

2.  Work by machine.  This far in, I’m not going to do that (although next year on the day before my anniversary I might change my mind.)

3.  Keep going, but shorten the times for top assembly and quilting.  I allowed six months for assembling the top and six months for quilting and binding, so I could shorten those times.

4.  Leave off the outer row of blocks and make a smaller quilt.  When I checked, the outer row has 92 blocks in it.  If I leave off that row, I am only 11 short – a much more manageable number.

I decided to go with a combination of option 3 and option 4.  I am going ahead with my schedule and starting to join the blocks together to assemble the quilt top.  At the same time, I am still making blocks in down time, like during my kids’ swimming lessons.  I need to get the centre section done by the end of September, the outer section on by the end of November and the outer border in December.  As I go, I will re-evaluate if I have time to do the outer row.  I want to start quilting it in January.

Here’s what 405 blocks look like:  (the blocks are about 4″ square)