With the completion of this block, I am more than 10% done with making the blocks for this quilt (23 of 225).

I started the first block almost exactly 10 months ago, so if I keep up this pace, it will take me less than 8 years to finish up the rest of the blocks. Of course, that doesn’t count the time to sew the blocks to each other, or to quilt the whole thing.

Whew, this was supposed to be motivating and energizing, knowing I was 10% done, but now I’m feeling a little daunted by the size of the project.

Still, I actually finished this block pretty quickly. I set myself a challenge to assemble the block in a weekend, and I got it done just under the wire. I started sewing Saturday at 9 AM, and finished up Sunday at 11 PM.

Of course, I wasn’t quilting continuously for the whole 38 hours … the piecing only took me about 3-4 hours total. The problem is finding time to do it between working, sleeping, and important things like that.

I find that I hardly get anything done on the quilt during the work week. With this block, for example, I started on February 20th, and it took me 5 weekdays to get out the fabric, print and cut out the templates, then cut out the fabric pieces.

Then, of course, it takes me a few days after the block is done to update The Progress page, photograph the finished block, figure out what I want to say about it, and write a blog entry.

No wonder I only get 2.3 blocks finished each month!

Thank goodness this one went together pretty quickly. It was nice to get back to plain old piecing of squares and rectangles again. I also had a lot of fun arranging the leaf-print fabric pieces; I was trying to make it look like the leaves were swirling around in a circle.

I thought this would be a good warm-up for the more difficult block I’m doing next. It has those same squares surrounded by strips of fabric to make a square within a square design, only the squares are much smaller. I hope I’m up to the task. If I get it and one more block done this month, then I’ll be 11% done!

Here’s one more encouraging thought. I’ve been carrying around all the completed quilt blocks in a Ziploc bag in my purse (in case anyone asks to admire them; one has to be prepared) … and now that I’ve hit the 10% mark, the bag is getting too bulky to carry around. That’s a sign of progress, right?