#The100DayProject – all done!

I wanted to do an update blog now that I’ve finished the official 100 days of #The100DaysProject!

I made it through the 100 days! Woohoo! Congratulations to others that have done so as well, and if you didn’t I hope you at least enjoyed the parts you did do! I didn’t manage every day of the 100 days, but did get a block of my Ruby Star Curvelets finished each week which I am thrilled with!

It’s been so nice to make regular progress with something I thought would be a forever project. Even when I missed a day or two I was able to keep up with the blocks by doing a few extra bits over the rest of the week. I think breaking it into weeks really helped me keep going with it and like a few others I’ve learned a good lesson from it about breaking big projects into smaller chunks and working on it more regularly. I tend to get excited about a project and want to work on it loads and then get daunted by how long it will take and put it away in favour of the next exciting project. Doing a few curvelets a day meant I was still working on other projects and getting quilts done, but also made so much progress with my ruby curvelets!

I think I’ve finally decided what my blocks will become and now just need to settle on the size. I’ve gotten “permission” to take down a photo/artwork from the movie 300 that’s in our hallway and put up my curvelets, so that’ll be a fun I-spy wall hanging for guests to look at when they come over! It’s looking like the final size will be 48″x24″ which works out 6 blocks wide by 4 tall. I have 20 finished after this 100 days project, so just need another 4! (Initially I thought I was going to make a small throw and need 56 blocks, but I think this wall hanging will be a better way to show them off!)

You can read more about my project at my “Halfway through” blog post and if you want to make some curvelets yourself you can find the templates on Jen Carlton-Bailly’s website.

Here’s a rundown of the 14 blocks I made over the 100 days and any little stories that come with them!

Block 1: Days 1-7

The first week was right at the start of February so I was definitely influenced by Valentine’s Day! I also had seen Jen repost a heart made from curvelets and had to incorporate it, so that’s what the strawberries are doing in the middle. Other than the heart I just grabbed bits that were pink or went with the pink parts I had out.

Block 2: Days 8-14

Week 2 started with 3 of the full circles and someone (@squirrelcoquilts) thought the one bottom centre was a moon so I decided to roll with that and make this a space theme. The toothbrushes are in honor of the astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield who I follow on Facebook and who had just posted a video of him brushing his teeth in space, haha. I think one of the first circles was the radio, so ran with that as well because radios are a big part of communication in space!

Block 3: Days 15-21

Week 3 was a random block, so didn’t really have any theme to it and I just grabbed bits and tried to make sure they worked together.

Block 4: Days 22-28

This week was “animal” themed, so I added in animals, animal prints, etc. The tree represents the forest many of them would live in, and the bananas and fish are food.

Block 5: Days 29-35

I put a poll up in my Instagram stories to have a vote on the theme for this week and “cats” won! Good thing Ruby Star Society fabric has a lot of cats in it! I was amused adding a few things in, like the carton of milk, the vase and glass that are destined to be knocked off a table, and a little flower bed that will probably become a cat bathroom!

Block 6: Days 36-42

This block was really exciting for me! I’d just figured out how to do a pieced apple core block using the curvelets templates, so thought a full block of them would be a lot of fun! Instead of just doing a random block though I wanted it to blend from colour to colour. There aren’t many greens, but between the yellows, blues, and teals I think it worked out okay! I love how these make flowers, and will definitely be playing more with this shape in the future!

Block 7: Days 43- 49

Thanks to Laura Silvers of @silversstiches for a bunch of the scraps of Warp and Weft that went into this block! I had a few I could use from an upcoming pattern release, but it would have made for a very boring block without her scraps! The wovens weren’t too hard to work with, but were a little more fiddly than Ruby Star’s normal quilting cottons. Definitely worth it for this block though, it’s so cool!

Block 8: Days 50-56

For this block I was playing with inset circles, so inset a circe into the block of 4 inset circles, haha. Inseteption? Inset-tion? Once you figure out how to inset shapes there’s loads to do to play with where you put them!

Block 9: Days 57-63

This “red/gold” theme block was my most liked from the series of blocks. It was the first time I’d sewn some fabrics together before making them into a curvelet shape. The egg and octopus circle bottom left makes me giggle as it’s like a takoyaki – spherical food substance made from an egg batter with a piece of octopus in the middle. (We had it a few times on the street in Japan in 2019, and I learned to make it at the beginning of lockdown in 2020 though we make it with shrimp instead of octopus since it’s easier to get and octopuses are awesome creatures.)

Block 10: Days 64-70

Another “what if” type block for week 10! I had seen someone post about mini foundation paper pieced (FPP) blocks in a Facebook group I’m in and immediately went to find them! (The one’s I’m talking about are by SewnUp Patterns and she has a few mini block sets but the full set is available here and it’s for 1.5″, 2″, and 3″ blocks) I bought the full set, but they weren’t quite the right size for my curvelet full circles so I designed my own! For my own mini FPP blocks I wanted to make sure they fit within or to the edges of the circle. I’ll be releasing them as a free download soon, so sign up to my newsletter at the bottom of this page (or here) to hear when they’re available! Just note that they’re designed to work with the curvelets full circle so might look a little odd on their own. I used two mini series blocks by Alison Glass and Giucy Giuce as well, they’re the more complicated pineapple block and hexagon step.

Block 11: Days 71-77

I fell down another rabbit hole for the block 11.. I was trying to work on my pattern matching, so if you look at the tiger and the soda pop bottle you’ll noticed they’re attempted pattern matching! The hole I fell down though is tinier curvelets.. I’m calling them curvelitos since they’re tiny curvelets and they finish at 1/2″ finished instead of 1″ finished. My first attempt at an inset curvelito wasn’t the most round, but I thought it should stay! The two pink curvelets with curvelito inserts worked better and inspired the week 13 block.

Block 12: Days 78-84

Before I started my 100 days project I had made a block using this clamshell shape and I knew I needed another one, but wanted it to be scales instaed of clamshells. I work this one from the bottom up though, so of course confused myself and the icecream and a tiger ended up upside down! I’ve decided the tiger is just doing the backstroke while having a swim, and the ice cream is undergoing the Dairy Queen test where they turn your shake upside down. Gotta make up the stories to make the mistakes fit!

Block 13: Days 85-91

Here’s a block inside a block! This is my rabbit hole deep dive. The centre curvelito block is made using the same proportion of quarter/half/full circles as my normal curvelets blocks and to make the rest of the block I took out a quarter of the normal quarter/half/full circle curvelets. I found a 3/16″ seam allowance easier to work with for the curveltios, but didn’t account for my normal seam allowance in a couple places, so the proportions of the half circles is a little off, but not too shabby for a hand pieced 1″ half circle if I do say so myself! I’ve got a few more ideas to play around with for the curvelitos, but don’t think I’m going to try any smaller. The normal curvelets feel gigantic after working with the teeny ones!

Block 14: Days 92-98

And here we are with the last official block!! Still can’t believe we’re already past the end now! For this one I started with a few full circles that caught my eye, then decided to go in a pastel sort of direction, and I’m so happy with the final final block. It’s a really nice set of colour tones! I fell in love with the Clementine collection again, and am sad that I can’t find the oranges on a pale background anymore! (Not sure what I’d use them for, but the colours in that print in particular are sooooo nice!)

Hope you found that interesting! Thanks for following along with my project!

I’m hoping to do a series of tutorials on how I do the different shapes so follow me on Instagram and Pinterest to catch those little videos and tutorials as they come out!

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