When I made Raconteur I simply made blocks as I felt like it, sometimes I didn't feel like it for quite a while which is why it took me about six years to make. Every block was named for either an event that happened while I was making the block, a significant event in my childhood or sometimes for something that the fabrics suggested. Many blocks were easy to name while others no name settled well for some time. In the end my husband named a few when I couldn't find the right name.I don't know how fast many of you are with making your blocks but just as a comparison it took me an average of four hours per block or 30 hours per collection to piece the separate blocks and join them together to make a collection. This time also included the drawing of the design and the cutting of fabric. I would go through stages where I felt like piecing and others where I just felt like cutting. There was one month where I simply designed and cut. Admittedly it was a stressful time at work and so not a lot was achieved that month but I think I managed to cut between five and ten each week. That gave me a wonderful supply of blocks ready for piecing when I went on holidays.
Quilting was then about ten hours per collection as I ditch stitched around each separate dark piece and occasionally add some extra quilting for highlighting. I had initially wanted to hand quilt the whole quilt but due to the thickness and the smallness of all of the pieces I found this wasn't feasible. I am not a fantastic machine quilter and wanted to make the entire quilt myself and so decided the only way that I could manage this would be to complete the quilting as QAYG.
So how long did it take...well approximately 59x40 is just under 2400 hours. If I did this as a full time job doing 35 hours a week it would take me almost 70 weeks, oh about a year and a half. Admittedly I am positive I would have hated the quilt if it was the ONLY thing I did for that length of time:)
So looking at the time it took me how are you going?
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