Checkerboards and Dresdens: A Finished Flimsy

AKA "The Red Project"

22 months in work. 103" square. 1,869  2" squares.  According to EQ, about 19 yards of fabric used.

240 Dresden blades and 48 snowballed corners.

It weighs a ton! All those seam allowances in the checkerboards sure add up. 36% of the fabric used in them is hidden in the seam allowances. *

It feels really good to have accomplished this. One Dresden and one checkerboard per month for the center, then monthly goals for the borders.

At 103" it's so big it hits the ground from my deck rail. I'm hoping that after quilting and shrinkage it'll finish at 98".

Since I couldn't find suitable border fabric for my original plan, I extended the full width of the checkerboards into the border. I'm glad I did because the quilt doesn't look as heavy, dark, and wintery as my original EQ renderings.

The revised border plan also included a 2" dark blue outer border, but this quilt is already bigger than I need, so I'm opting to omit the final border. I think it's fine without it. There's a lot of seams at the outer edges so I stay-stitched around the outside so none of those seams will start to open up.

I have an appointment to take it to the quilter next weekend. This week I'll prep the backing and de-thread the back side of the top. That'll probably take me all week and it's a tedious job, but it has to be done; there's a lot of threads.


* Seam allowances:
2" finished square is 4 square inches.
Cut patch is 2.5" which is 6.25 square inches.
6.25 minus 4 is 2.25 square inches not visible, used in seam allowances.
2.25 is 36% of 6.25, meaning more than a third of the fabric used is hidden in the seam allowances but definitely contributes to the weight of this top.


Linking up with Whoop Whoop Friday over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict - this is definitely whoop-worthy.

Other link ups:
Wendy's Quilts and More
My Quilt Infatuation
Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Em's Scrapbag
Love Laugh Quilt