In Progress: Bahama Breeze Quilt

I'm so happy to finally start working on this project! This has been "in the queue and ready to start" on my In Progress & UFO page since 2009 when I bought the fabric bundles at the NJ Quiltfest.

I've set aside the first two weeks of July as a 'stay-cation' to work on several projects for me. In addition to this quilt, I would like to finish a couple of window treatments for my kitchen and powder room. I don't know how much I will be able to finish in two weeks, but I hope to get a pretty good start.

I fell in love with the batik fabrics used in the model of this quilt and returned to the Quilter's Obsession booth several times before finally buying the kit. The bundle of fabric in the kit contained enough fabric to make a 68x68 inch quilt, so I ordered a second fabric bundle and plan to add two rows and two columns of blocks so that it will fit a queen size bed.

To get a head start on this ambitious project, I've already pre-washed my fabrics:

I almost didn't buy the kit because it requires paper-piecing of several units, but the nice lady at Quilter's Obsession convinced me it wasn't too hard and that I could do it. Just to be sure, I took a class on paper-piecing at the Cozy Quilt Shoppe that same summer (see my post from last October about the Maple Madness placemats).

The pieced units for Bahama Breeze are pretty simple compared to the Maple Madness designs. I found a package of Fun-dation sheets in my stash - I vaguely remember buying them at a huge discount when the JoAnn ETC at the Palisades Mall closed several years ago. I scanned the diagrams of the pieced units and saved them as .jpg files, then printed them on the Fun-dation sheets for about half of the pieced units. I'll have to buy a couple more packs of sheets later to finish all the blocks for the quilt top.

Needing a little fabric therapy, I decided not to wait until July and began cutting some of the fabrics and stitching a few of the paper-pieced units to refresh my memory on the technique. Here's the 9-patch center of one of the main blocks (the center is more minty green, but looks yellow in this photo):

The squares are placed side by side in this photo, waiting to be re-stitched. The first time I assembled the 9-patch section, my exact 1/4" seams were too wide so the finished block was too small. So I will re-stitch them with a narrower seam of about 3/16".

I will post regular updates of my progress on this project over the next few weeks and until the quilt is finished, whenever that may be.

edited:
Dec-18-2018 Replace SewAmazin Flickr photos with Google photos; edit links