Finally Finished for 2016; I Have Forty Blocks For My Bible Quilt

I just posted my 2016 review this past Tuesday and mentioned that I only completed 35 out of the 40 blocks for the Women of the Bible Quilt.  I wasn't expecting to finish the final five blocks this year but after I saw an alternative layout for these blocks on Pinterest the other day I was determined to finish them even if it meant some modifications which I'll explain later.

15" Blocks 

10" Blocks

The free block patterns were provided by Stitchin' Tree Quilts and are still available online.  I thought this would be a fun and meaningful quilt to start making at the beginning of this year since I was also going to start my daily reading of NIV's The One Year Bible.  There are twelve 15 inch blocks and twenty-eight 10" blocks, each representing a women from the Bible and the goal was to make one block a week and to be done by the end of October.  My friend, Dee, joined me in this project.  The two fabric lines used in my blocks were Amanda Nyberg's Good Neighbor and Emily Herrick's Technicolor which I thought worked well with each other and I also added some Riley Blake for one happy color combination.

I had thirty blocks done by the end of August at which time my past experience with participating in quilt alongs caught up with me--I didn't want to finish the rest of the blocks.  Some of these blocks reminded me of some of the Gypsy Wife blocks with the odd patch sizes.  I am not a big fan of cutting any measurements in increments that are not whole, 1/2" or 1/4".  If there was a merit badge for rotary cutting, I would not receive one.  I much rather make quilts if I can use my die cutter or one of my many shape cut rulers. Plus, some of the Bible pattern instructions were confusing which didn't help since I'm also not very patient.  So the blocks were put away until the beginning of December and I sewed five more blocks.  I kept thinking of ways of I could finish the quilt without finishing the last five.  Like the Gypsy Wife quilt, I was not excited with the way the quilt was to be finished so my last thought was to turn all of the 10" blocks into 15" blocks by sewing a 3" strips of coordinating fabrics around the block but I didn't like they way they looked.  Thankfully, I found my solution on Pinterest where I saw the alternative layout that Studio M did which you can see here:  Women of the Bible Alternative Layout.  To me, I think it's a more appropriate layout for a bed quilt.  So, I had to sew the last five blocks and wanted to be done by the end of the year so I finished them in three days despite having a cold and working on baby shower invitations and planning.  (I'm going to be a first-time Grandmother in March!)  Since I modified some of these blocks I don't feel right in calling this a Women of the Bible Quilt so for me it's my Bible Quilt and I can add it to my  UFO Project List for 2017.  With the new layout, I'm actually am looking forward to making this top.

Now I ready for my New Year Day project of planning my 2017 activities which I am sure a lot of other quilters will be doing.   I hope everyone has a safe Happy New Year celebration and don't do any crazy rotary cutting.