Progress on "Branching Out" - that Moda trees quilt top

I’m making some progess on the blocks for these.

I did make a whole lot more tree trunks as I will need 200 blocks. Last time I had 94 trees made and wanted to have about 140 done before the next share, but I did have to make up a bunch more tree trunks as well. When I first started this project, I went ahead and made what I had thought at the time was enough for the whole quilt and that was 92 tree trunk sections.

As of this writing, I’m up to 132 blocks, so I’m making progess! I did go on a big cutting strips spree a while ago and have been working on sewing those up into the logs for the tree.

I call them logs, because making this block is a lot like a half log cabin block except there is a tree trunk that you use. Maybe it is sort of like a braid block. Anyway, maybe it’s a cross between the two. Once you have the light added to the tree limbs, it is quite easy.

I do need to go back through and trim all of my blocks, but I’m waiting on doing that. I may go ahead and start it, however, as doing anything to 200 blocks is usually massive!

I’m seriously happy with these and am getting more excited about the possbility of getting these done. I have a feeling after a couple more blog posts showing my progess, I will decide to just go for it and get that top done! Obviously as of right now, I’m just not close enough to getting done and the blocks, while each one gives a bit of satisfaction, they are somewhat tedious.

After doing some searching on Instagram for other people’s blocks, I’ve not seen anyone who shared on that platform with this many blocks. Most were solidly lap or wall quilt size. But I decided I want this one for our own bed, and so I want it a nice queen size quilt.

There are so many blocks here that I’m running out of room here on the living room floor - need to clear out the left side as I have some things that need to go elswhere sitting there.

I am almost out of the blue green from my shelves, so I need to go through all my Lori Holt plastic bins that I have - most of those bins aren’t really big and deep as many of these scraps are actually kind of small, as in a fat quarter size or smaller, and sorted by color. However, I have already done some of those fabrics. I may need to expand to more greens or just go back to my fabrics with new eyes.

I’m trying to use 100 fabrics so that I’m not doing more than 2 of each fabric. I have 132 blocks done BUT have about 20 more cut out but not sewn together, so after all those are finished, I will need “only” about 25 more fabrics. LOL I have quite a few, but I may have to stretch myself to find that many more I want to put in this top. But I think I can do it.

Once again, if you want the pattern for this quilt, go here and snag it. It’s a freebie. The layout isn’t part of it particularly, and when I get there, I will share the size of my side setting triangles. The pattern comes in two sizes, but I am making the smaller tree.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this.


Becky PetersenComment