When I went to Fall Quilt Market back in October, one of the quilts that I was most excited about was the Smitten Quilt by Lucy Kingwell for Jen Kingwell Designs. Lucy is Jen's daughter and the talent for beautifully hand-pieced and quilted scrappy quilts run in the family!
The Smitten quilt is 48" x 61" but you can make it larger if you want my adding additional blocks.
The quilt looks really complicated, but like any big project, you should "eat the elephant one bite at a time" so to speak. :) Ultimately, it is made up of a lot of pieced hexagons all hooked together.
I played around with the pattern and templates the other day and shared on IG. I pretty much loved the opportunity to fussy cut some things and this is a great scrap buster project. And so I decided to host a quilt along ... want to sew with me?
Materials Needed:
- The Smitten Pattern - Lucy Kingwell
- 4-4.5 yards total for blocks
- 1/2 yard for setting triangles (down the sides of the quilt)
- 5/8 yard binding
- 3-5/8 backing fabric
- Template plastic OR Marti Michell Set H acrylic templates
- Marking pen
- Pens or Glue Tips for glue basting
This quilt can be pieced by hand or machine. I'll be piecing by machine. :-)
A Word about Templates:
There are drawings in the pattern that you can trace onto template plastic to make your own cutting templates for the pieces we will need. If you make your own, don't forget to add the 1/4" seam allowance.
Personally, I am using the
Marti Michell templates for a number of reasons. First, they are already made and include the seam allowance! Second, I really can't say enough about the directions and diagrams included with these templates. Rotary cutting from strips, other quilt patterns, sewing hexagons tips, and more. A really great resource. Thirdly, there are lines on the templates showing the middle so it makes it easy to center motifs if you are fussy cutting. And finally, the predrilled holes make marking your start and stop points so fast, accurate, and easy ... and when combined with the clipped corners, lining everything up is a breeze.
Don't Fear the Y Seams:
This quilt uses Y-seams for construction of the blocks. This doesn't have to be scary! It's a little tedious, but if you cut and mark your pieces well and can sew an accurate 1/4" seam to connect the dots then you are good to go! (Here's a
tutorial I did piecing hexagons by machine.) You can totally do it! :)
Quilt Along Schedule:
We'll kick this awesome project off in February and sew together for about 8 months ... finishing before the holiday sewing madness! :)
In February, we'll tackle Large Hexagon One which is probably the most tedious to piece. BUT it does give us opportunities to fussy cut and will likely be some of the blocks you build the rest of the quilt on ... so we'll knock them out first! If you need to make some in February and some later in the quilt along its totally fine! :)
Also, in months where we'll make large and small hexagons, we're essentially making the same block in two sizes, so I've grouped them together.
Help Along the Way:
On the 6th of the month (hexagons have six sides, so hopefully that is easy to remember!), I will post here on my blog some tips for piecing that month's blocks. I won't be sharing the pattern or cutting measurements. But I will share some step by step photos for getting the blocks together. I'll also share my progress here and on Instagram and hope you will too! Use #smittenqal and #smittenquiltqal !
Who's ready?!
