My actual assembly goal for August was to sew J12 to K12, but then I was able to attach those two blocks to the already-assembled J13 and K13, which I could attach to J10-K11, which I could attach to L10-M13.

And before I knew it, I had this lovely 4×4 grid of assembled blocks from the lower right corner of the quilt. Exciting!

With so much assembly, it took me about two weeks to put it all together, but it’s so worth it, to be able to see the quilt start to come together.

It’s also super cool to finally get an idea of whether my cornerstone plan is going to work, with each cornerstone matching the color of the two adjacent diagonal blocks. I think it’s really going to help reinforce those diagonal color bands.

This is also the point where some “slightly off” block sizes are coming back to haunt me though … K13 was inexplicably bigger than the blocks around it, and there was a lot of fudging to get it to fit with the others. It’ll need a lot of quilting to keep it reasonably flat.

That one longer seam (about 20 inches) to sew the two 4×2 sections together was a little bit tricky to do by hand. There was a lot of fabric to hold on to, and I forgot to use my sewing bird to help with that.

I’ll try to remember to use it next time. I’m working on the center section E5-I9 next, so I’ll end up with one seam of about 25 inches, which definitely seems bird-worthy.

But I need to pick up the pace on block construction if I’m going to have enough center-section blocks for my monthly sashing goals. I’m saying this as I spent this morning pretending it was September 31st so I could wrap up the last few seams on my September sashing goals.

I figure it’s okay if I fudge the date a little bit, since they’re my own self-imposed goals, but it would be cool to finish them within the month all the same. Maybe the mini virtual retreat that some friends and I are planning for November will afford an opportunity to get ahead? One can only hope.

If it doesn’t work out, I’ll be sure to report on my progress here for the 31st of November. Stay tuned!