Naive Melody quilt, as an art quilt

Last April, during the first pandemic lockdown, Lucy Engels started making this quilt as part of the #100dayproject. I was admiring every single beautiful block she made — 100 blocks in total, almost all appliqué, with just a few pieced blocks.

Fortunately, she decided to turn the project into a pattern, and on September 1st the sew-along officially began.

Quilt Process

Lately, every quilt I make is first pre-designed in Illustrator and then slowly brought to life. But for this pattern, I only had to choose my main fabrics. All the appliqué pieces came straight from my scrap bin — and honestly, I love my scrap bin and how much it has reduced in size this past year.

Each month we had to make approximately 20 blocks, give or take. It was such a fascinating process, and it really pushed me to work harder.

I did miss one deadline — I think it was October — which meant that the following month I had to make more than 40 blocks. And somehow, I made them all in just 10 days. What an adventure!

Machine Quilting

Well, machine quilting did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. I did not baste the quilt evenly enough, which resulted in some bad puckering in certain areas. Yes, there was some crying during the process.

But in the end, all is well. After all, only we quilters notice our mistakes. No one else does.

Binding

Since we decided that this quilt would be hung on the wall, faced binding was the obvious choice. It was the first time I had ever tried it, and by following Audrey Esarey’s (Cotton & Bourbon) facing tutorial, the process was surprisingly easy.

In the photos, you can see how beautifully the whole quilt stands on the wall.

Quilt Dimensions

When my companion-in-life saw all the blocks sewn together, he immediately said: “this should be on our living room wall.”

And so it did.

I adjusted the measurements and decided to piece the blocks into a rectangle. I made a total of 98 blocks instead of 100, and the final size is 84 x 42 inches.

Just perfect for our living room wall.

Dates

Quilt started: September 2020

Quilt finished: February 2021

Pattern Used

Naive Melody Quilt by Lucy Engels.

I think everybody has understood by now how much I loved making this pattern. It is very well written and it definitely gets you hooked on appliqué all over again.

Thank you for reading!