I tend to overthink minor things.

I can make the big decisions. (Like buying a car or spending money on a plane ticket or should I have a facelift (no))

But I have caught myself standing in Bed, Bath, and Beyond staring at dust ruffles for an hour trying to pick between white and off white.

Minor minor minor things.

And I have been overthinking how I wanted to put this QAYG blanket together.

So much overthinking, I was waking at night trying to come up with the perfect layout.

I originally envisioned it as a “nap” quilt.  54″ x 68″.  If I just sew the blocks together it will finish up 53″ x 71″. Pretty close to perfect.

But after a year of sewing on this project, I thought it should be a full-size quilt so I could use it on our sofa bed that’s in my office for when we have “overflow” guests or great-grandma whom no longer wants to deal with the stairs to the two upstairs bedrooms.  So it had to be about 70″ x 84″.

If I was doing the quilt all over again, I would have started with a central color theme.  Which is what I have done with the “Splendid Sampler” quilt.

And then I didn’t like how the colors matched up.  The two blue blocks together and the red blocks together.  What was I thinking?

And what color should the binding be?  I really like using stripes cut on the bias.  But what color?  Nothing matches!  And the border?  What fabric should that be?

I messed around with the layout.

And then finally, on one of those times in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn’t sleep, I decided, as I usually do after overthinking an issue.

it just doesn’t matter.

So, I put the center together with the “conflicting blue blocks” and the “too much red on top of one another” and decided to add a 9″ border with some neutral color all the way around it to get it to the size I wanted.

When really examining all of the contrasting colors I thought dark blue would work.  And ordered Cotton & Steel Paper Bandana Add It Up Indigo piece from Fabric.com.

I save all of my leftover batting and since I only use “Warm and Natural” quilt batting, I knew that those bits and pieces would all be the same batting and all the same weight.  I found enough long pieces to make the 9″ sides but didn’t have enough for the top and bottom.  So I put a 4″ wide piece on the top and a 13″ wide piece on the bottom.  (I also had to overthink whether the 4″ piece should be on the top or bottom and now I think it should have been the other way…or maybe not….)

No rules in quilting, right?

Next problem was the quilt backing.  I had already purchased the backing for the nap size quilt.  (And, just like the rest of quilt it doesn’t match anything.)

I took a very scientific approach to the backing.  I went to Fabric.com and clicked on the “sale” button, narrowed it down to quilting cottons, then browsed.  Until I said

“Oh–bunnies!”

And ordered four yards of Riley Blakes Wonderland Rabbit but now, since the quilt is bigger, I need five.

Scheesh.  I have really made this way too difficult!

I think I like it, though.

And here’s how I put it together:

Quilt as You Go Block of the Month Quilt

I have been following the method from the Shiny Happy World blog’s tutorial on QAYG.

First step–trimming the blocks to the same size.

Since I wasn’t very consistent with my block sizes, I picked the smallest quilt block–which for me was 18 1/4″–and cut all the blocks down to that.

I know this is not a quilter’s tool but it’s perfect to make sure these big blocks are square!

Sew them together in the right order with a 1/4″ seam..

Press the seams open.

Make the borders using the QAYG method and add to the blocks.

And that’s as far as I got.  I ordered new backing from Fabric.com and it arrived a week later but I already was neck deep in several other projects then I flew off to North Dakota for a week.  Once I got back home I started putting the backing on and we had a HURRICANE!

Seriously. That very night. We had a four foot storm surge which turned our house into an island. No power (except for our generator) No cable. No INTERNET!  For 36 hours and then it was time to do some major cleanup.

This was our backyard a few weeks ago.

And this was our backyard last Friday morning.

We are extremely fortunate and had no damage.  Many of our friends and neighbors had several feet of water in their homes.  Cars and trucks were ruined with sea water. A neighbors boat floated away.

Here’s the yard after some cleanup on Sunday afternoon.

That was a little set back in my plans  but I’m back at it.  Plan to have this quilt finished by the first Tuesday in October!