Crazy Acres QAL {Cutting}

Hi there! I am so excited to start our quilt along! I am so appreciative of the great response and all the kind comments about our Crazy Acres Quilt! So thank you! 

March 11: Fabric Requirements
March 20: Cutting 
March 27: Block Construction
April 10: Top Assembly
April 17: Basting
April 24: Quilting
May 1: Binding
May 15: Show and Tell

Hopefully, you have your fabric picked out, ironed and ready to cut!

So let's get started!

Before you start cutting, you will want to think about the overall appearance of your quilt.  Do you want a super scrappy quilt, or are you going for a more simplistic approach?  Do you want one color to be more dominating than another color, or would you prefer to have the colors evenly spaced throughout your quilt?  So keep that in mind as you read through the cutting requirements!

Here is the block that makes up the quilt.  I made this diagram of the block so you can understand what part of the block I am referring to:

Here is how I decided to approach my quilt:

•  I wanted to make my quilt on the simplistic side. 
•  I did not want too much scrappy, so I planned the colors for each block. 
•  I decided I wanted to keep my diamond blocks two colors--to keep it simple.  I did use a variety of different prints, but used pink for the vertical diamonds and orange for the horizontal diamonds. I also used the same print for each specific block for the inner star and then another print for the outer pinwheel.  You can see this a little better by looking at my finished quilt: 

• Before I started cutting, I colored in what I wanted my quilt to look like, so I could plan out each block.  You can get the coloring page here--so you can also do this if you'd like!  I found that it really helped when cutting my fabric so I knew exactly how many of each color I needed!

 PDF Coloring Sheet

I decided to include cutting for 1 block for a couple of reasons:

1. If you just wanted to make one block, or even if you wanted to make less than 12, you have the information needed to do that.

2.  Like I mentioned before,  I did this the long way.  I cut out my squares one block at a time.  I know this sounds really time consuming, but I did this so I could control how every block looked and also so I didn't cut too many of one color or didn't cut enough of another color.  This is completely optional, and not necessary if you want to approach this another way!  

Maybe you don't have a preference about each of your blocks, and maybe want a more scrappy look.  If so, you can just cut out 168 squares all in various colors and also cut your background fabrics and you are done.  The nice thing about doing it this way is that it is quick, and doesn't require too much thought!   

Since I cut my blocks out one at a time, I placed all the pieces for each block in separate little plastic baggies.  This helped me when I was ready to piece them together so that I knew I had all the pieces required for one block.  

If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment and I will answer them! Or you can also email me directly: lindsey@fortworthfabricstudio.com

Talk to you soon,