Nine Carat Quilt Along: Week 1

Our Nine Carat Quilt Along starts today! I am SEW glad you are here! If you haven’t got your pattern yet, you can get the digital pattern from Cut Loose Press or the paper paper pattern from QBPN. If you’re joining us late, you can still sign up as long as the quilt along is still going.

Videos for this week

I’ve been making lots of videos for this quilt along: demos, advice, reveals and such. Here are the videos I have for this week:

Choosing Fabrics
Cutting Fabrics (Intro)
Foreground/Fat Quarter Cutting Demo
Background Cutting Demo
Cutting Binding Strips

I will be adding videos throughout the quilt along. You can view all of the currently available videos at any time in this playlist.

On the Schedule for this Week

This week we’re going to gather our fabrics and cut our pieces.

Gather Fabrics
Here’s our fabric requirements for this quilt:
– 10 fat quarters
– 2-1/2 yards background
– 4 yards backing
– 5/8 yard binding

I’ll be using all beautiful Benartex fabrics for my quilt. My foreground fat quarters are from “Faith & Grace” by Nicole DeCamp. The background is “Chalk Texture” in Light Turquoise.

My backing is also from “Faith & Grace”. I ordered a little extra because I’m going to match the prints along the seam line. This is something that I used to think was an absurd thing to do… too time consuming and not worth it. BUT, the first time I actually did this, I enjoyed it. I actually matched up the backing prints in my first Nine Carat Quilt as well. I made a tutorial for this while I made that quilt. You can watch that HERE.

For binding I used “Chalk Texture” in Pink. I love using “Chalk Texture”! It’s a great basic line, perfect for an almost solids look.

I feel like fat quarter bundles make choosing these foreground fabrics super easy, and I made a demo for ALL of the cutting in this quilt. So, for today, I want to talk about choosing your background.

The background fabric is SEW important in the overall look of the quilt, maybe even more important than the foreground because it can completely change the look of your quilt. My light turquoise background is subtle, but you can see in the pictures below that it still makes a difference in the overall look of the quilt. I feel like the one with the white background looks brighter while the light turquoise softens the look. Both look great though: it’s all about personal preference.

Check out the slide show below for some examples of how much of a difference the background can make. Each foreground colorway is shown with two different backgrounds.

Each Week on the Blog

I’ll link to all of the other weeks near the end of each post. I will add each post here as I have them. You can also find this on the Quilt Alongs Page.

Week 1 – You are currently at the Week 1 Post
Week 2 – Make 9-Patches
Week 3 – Snowballs
Week 4 – Cut, Rearrange, and Resew your 9-Patches
Week 5 – Assemble Your Quilt Top

Prize for this Week

Our prize for this week is a special label with YOUR name on it for your finished quilt! I used a graphic from the pattern to get some custom labels designed by my friend Melanie at Meander and Make/Southern Charm Quilts. I order my labels from her all the time. They are great labels.

This one is for US winners only due to shipping costs. If the winner is an international quilt alonger, I will send you one of my PDF patterns so you don’t miss out on getting a prize.

If whoever wins this one has already purchased one of the labels, I will work with you to get you a different prize so that you don’t miss out. If you want to purchase one of the labels you can do that HERE. Full disclosure: that was an affiliate link meaning I earn commission, but it doesn’t affect the price you pay. Use the coupon code SNUGGLEBUGSTITCHING for 10% off.

Why label your quilts? You can read my blog post on that HERE.

To be eligible for prizes:

– You must be following me and all our sponsors on Instagram and post at least one progress picture for the week on Instagram by Monday at 7:00 PM Central Time. You must tag me @snugglebugstitching in your posts and use the #ninecaratqal.

Here are the Instagram accounts you need to be following to be elligible for prizes:
@snugglebugstitching
@benartex_fabrics
@quiltbpn
@cutloosepress
@thegypsyquilter

-I will announce the winner on Instagram and tag the lucky quilt alonger so that they know they’ve won. The winner will have one week to contact me to claim the prize. Any unclaimed prizes will be forfeited.