Cog + Wheel Quilt Top

In September 2017, I took a class with Denyse Schmidt at Amitie and began to make the Cog + Wheel quilt pattern. At the time, it was a bit of a challenge for my quilting skills – templates, curves, inset blocks… Perhaps “challenge” isn’t quite the right word, but more of a slight fear-inducing pattern.

But I was up for the challenge, and I had some good quilty friends with me in the class, so all-in-all, it was a fantastic day! I managed to finish two blocks, and in the following weeks, I made one more partial block and cut another out. I was having so much fussy cutting these blocks!

And there it sat. I still was in love with the project, but it was pushed to the back burner for months. Until earlier this year when I saw that Wendy from The Next Stitch was co-hosting a quilt along for it with Denyse. What a perfect reason/external motivation/pressure to get this quilt top finished!

I pulled it all out and assessed where I was up to. I had purchased more background fabric for it back in 2017 when I realised I wanted to make it a larger quilt (originally had planned on a baby-sized quilt), and I still had all the Anna Maria Horner fabric separated from my stash… except that I hadn’t realised just how big the outer pieces of the block were and that I wouldn’t be able to cut enough from the fabric to make the quilt bigger! So back to a baby quilt it was. And I’m really pleased with how it turned out!

This quilt was originally planned to be for my newest nephew, until I found the perfect fabric for his veggie-garden-loving family and Master C ended up with a different quilt instead. So I’m now unsure about where this one will end up, but that’s ok! It’s always good to have a stockpile of quilts on hand just in case. I loved the process of making the Cog and Wheel quilt, and learned a couple of new techniques along the way – working with different types of curved seams, and realising how easy inset seams are.

Which does amaze me… I’ve long been scared of doing inset seams, but they were quite honestly the easiest curved seam of the block! Have you ever tried them?