Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt - Part 1 - Planning
You read right, a quilt. I have had a stash of very hungry caterpillar quilting fabric in my quilting basket for over eight years now, collected when going through my “oh I can quilt” stage in life. A dear ex-colleagues daughter will be one next week, and with most of my Christchurch friends, I plan a handmade gift for their first birthday with the parents. In this case I offered to make a quilt (I have a stash of kids quilting fabric from Dr. Sues to girl pirate) and the request for the very hungry caterpillar was made.
I admittedly struggle with quilting, there are almost too many possibilities that my creative mind gets overwhelmed. To help regulate the creative possibilities and set a plan in place before starting, I decided to do a visual plan of the quilt.
There are two panels which create a great focus point, and keeping things regular, I opted for square blocks, fractions of the panel size. The fabric itself has a predominant “light” white background. Within the stash there is a fat quarter of green fabric, and two meters of multi-coloured dots, to allow for colour contrast between each block I have opted for a “dark” border of the coloured fabric.
My process:
Create a rough sizing template (by hand) of each block based on finished quilt measurements and panel block size.
Set up the template to scale within excel to help visualise the completed quilt.
Take photos of panels and available fabric.
Populate blocks.
Repeat step 4. for different quilt options
Now that I have a visual pattern and sizing of each block I am now in a less overwhelming position to cut and sew the quilt together. There will be some fussy cutting which will no doubt mess with my maths a little but overall the once daunting process is now a managed one.
I look forward to sharing with you the construction and finished quilt.
