I have loved Jen Kingsley’s Gypsy Wife Quilt ever since the first time I saw it. It’s been the cover of my pinterest board for quilting for almost a year now.
So when I started to see block-of-the-months (BOM) pop up on Flickr for this awesome quilt, I just had to join in! I’m so excited to be a part of The Intrepid Thread’s Gypsy Wife BOM. I think the fabrics they have chosen are fantastic, and I’m so excited to see what pretty fabrics these next months will bring! When signing up for the BOM, we had a choice of two colorways — either calm (with lots of pale blues and grays) or intense (lots of figs and plums with pops of red and yellow). I chose the intense, and I am so happy I did!
I had a hard time choosing the layout for the first block. With so many beautiful fabrics to showcase, and not knowing what the rest of the quilt will really look like, I wasn’t sure which color I should highlight the most. I tried it with a ruby background:
And with a gold background:
But in the end, I chose the layout suggested by The Intrepid Thread in their newsletter. It felt like I was squashing some of my creativity to choose a layout that had already been showcased, but since it was only my first block, I decided to give myself a pass. Especially since it truly was the layout that I liked the best!
My only regret is that I wish I had fussy cut the center block like this, instead of the way I did.
Oh, wait! Did I say my only regret?!? No, there were many regrets. The biggest when I realized I had sewn the block together almost ALL WRONG!
Here is a visual of what not to do:
So, yeah, that happened. But, I recovered, and I am really happy with the pretty little block I now have. That is all mine. And will someday be a part of a completed Gypsy Wife Quilt of my very own! Yippee!!
