Project Playtime is GO!

Yesterday, I started work on a new project, the Playtime quilt from American Jane Patterns.


I don't know how I first stumbled across this pattern, but when I did, I fell in love. I looked around on the Web for many months, hoping to find a store offering this pattern as a block-of-the-month (BOM) that I could sign up for, but was unable to find one. I even went to my local quilt shop to see if they might be offering it in the future, but I guess the pattern is a couple years old. They offered to order it in for me and help me pick out fabric, but I really wanted to just have it all put together for me (lately, decisions on that kind of scale are a little much for me what with the toddler... thus opening my eyes to the beauty of kits!). Then at Quilt Festival when I found a shop offering a kit for sale, I immediately snatched it up.

I've never made a kitted quilt before. I've done one BOM, so I kind of figured it would be similar—with indications of what fabrics should go where. I was wrong. I've got a bag of fabric and a parcel of patterns. I don't have a picture of the finished project as the quilt shop made it. I don't have any idea what fabric is supposed to go where because the fabrics don't all match the pattern descriptions. And the cuts don't match the suggested fabric requirements, so I can't use that as a guide either. Really, it's not too big a deal, but I worry that I'll use a fabric someplace only to find that I need it somewhere else. I guess though, should that happen, I just need to be prepared to wing it.

Once I got my brain over that initial intimidating hurdle, I was able to get to work.


I managed to cut out all of the various background pieces of the quilt which was the first part of the "Month 1" pattern. It was pretty time-consuming, but I'm feeling good that I've got this tedious part done. Woo hoo! I even remembered to use some sticky notes to label the pieces as I cut so I'd know what's what in the months ahead. One thing I really like about this pattern is that it offers a place to keep track of the background fabrics used. I was able to paste little swatches of each background in a box printed next to the cutting instructions for that fabric. I thought that was a pretty nifty feature. You can see it above (the pattern is legible in real life, I just swooshed out all the fabric measurements in the picture).

The second part of the Month 1 pattern includes the various setting stars. I think they're going to be a lot of fun to put together. So many pretty colors! Now I just need to find time to sit at my machine and do it.