Start of Cathedral Windows Quilt

start of cathedral windows quilt, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

472 blocks (9 1/2 inches square), I'm not sure how many I will need for the actual quilt. It is somewhere around 600 and 700, so this won't be enough for it but it is a good start. Now I need to start the other pieces of fabric that will fit inside of these once they are folded. This stack represents 6 hours of cutting fabric. I can't believe how much it weighs, and I have yet to cut the color pieces that go into the quilt.

Since it took 6 hours to do 2 blocks (which are sets of 4 squares), I have been doing some math -- that would be 3 hours per block set. Also, I still have to cut the filler blocks which, because they will be from scraps, will take about 10 times longer than the white which was from yardage, so 60 hours there. So take 472 squares /4 squares per block=118 blocks *3 hours per set of blocks = 354 hours + 60 hours color squares + 6 hours yardage squares = 420 hours minimum to make this, and probably 7 times that to do it by hand instead of machine (354 * 7 + 66 = 2544 hours) .

If I worked on it 4 hours a day, every day (which is impossible because I have a family and job), it would take an estimated 15 weeks by machine and about 91 weeks by hand, or more. I think this is the definition of insanity, and I guess I like that type of insanity, sort of. There is no way I can take on any project for that long of a time, so I expect this will go into hibernation and out of it, several times.

I am hoping that assembly line techniques like chain sewing and things of that sort speed this up a ton; I will keep you informed.

As I get farther into this, I will post a tutorial.