Mad Dash Sew-Along Info
Posted on March 21, 2022 by prairiemoonquilts in Mad DashI’m thrilled to hear that so many of you are interested in the sew-along for the Mad Dash quilt! I hope you will find it fun, even tho it might be a bit challenging at times. I’ll be here to walk you through all the tough parts, and hopefully make them easy!
(If you’re unsure what I’m talking about, you can read all about the Mad Dash quilt HERE.)
I’ve been getting some questions, so I thought I would try to answer them in today’s post, and if you still have more questions after that, just give me a holler.
The sew-along begins on April 4th. The proposed schedule is posted below. There are no firm deadlines, and this is a sew-at-your-own-pace sew-along. I’m not rushing you, since this is a pretty intense project, and we all have different schedules and sew at different speeds. You can work along as you wish, and the posts will be there when you’re ready to move through the steps.
You will need to purchase the Mad Dash pattern to participate, so that you will have all the instructions and templates you need. You can purchase it HERE, in either print or PDF format. You can read more about it HERE.
Someone wanted to know how many blocks are in the quilt! I hadn’t actually thought to total them up until I was asked. The answer is: 201, plus some partial and special blocks that are used to fill in along the way.
To get all the sew-along post notifications (which includes notifications of ALL my posts by default), you can use the form in the upper right of the sidebar to subscribe to News from the Ranch, so that you don’t miss any of them. This looks a bit different on mobile devices, so scroll almost to the bottom where it says “News from the Ranch” and subscribe there. If you are already subscribed and receiving emails from me, then you’re all set!
All the posts about the sew-along will be in the Mad Dash category HERE.
Others are wondering about color selection, so I’m gonna talk about that for a bit . . .
You can look at the introductory post about the quilts HERE to see two of the color versions I’ve made. My original was made in pinks and grays (pinks for the Churn Dash and grays for the background).
My second attempt was made in oranges and low-volumes (oranges for the Churn Dash and low-volumes for the background). In that version, I used all sorts of low-volumes, but I particularly favored low-volume prints that also had a bit of orange in them.
Since I’ll be joining you for this sew-along as well, I have now pulled fabrics for a third version! Here’s what I’m going with this time — hot pinks that lean to the raspberry side, and lime green — and I’m having trouble deciding which I want to be the background and which I want to be the Churn Dash — let me know what you think in the comments!
I had lots of other ideas, and there are a few suggestions given in the pattern as well. I debated doing all different bright scraps for my Churn Dash, with low-volume backgrounds, and I had this bundle I was considering for the Churn Dash parts:
Or a bundle like this would also be fun (if you made sure the lights didn’t blend into your background low-volumes):
But having already done low-volume backgrounds once, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do a low-volume background again (since I have an aversion to doing the same thing twice — life is too short! — haha!)
I also debated doing all reds for my Churn Dash and creamy low-volumes for my background.
Another option was blues and yellows, or even dark-to-navy blues with low-volumes that included shirtings.
My sister is considering oranges and purples. Becky is considering grays that lean to dark, with multi-colored low-volumes for the background. Terri is considering making each section’s Churn Dash parts from a different color (which will take a bit of counting to make sure you’re getting enough blocks, or the right blocks, for each section).
You could also do a one-color version, using, for example, very light purples for one “color” and dark purples for the other “color”. You would need to be very careful doing this, tho, so as not to get any of the lights too dark, or any of the darks too light in each section.
Whatever you use, you don’t want the lines that make up the large Churn Dash to get blurred between the colors. It needs to have sharp lines so that the overall effect doesn’t get destroyed.
Here are a few other ideas:
- • Light pinks and aqua blues/turquoise
- • Yellows and grays
- • Oranges and blues
- • Purples and yellows
- • Browns/rusts and creams
- • Just about any color you love used with low-volumes
The main thing you need to keep in mind is that your background fabrics have to have high contrast with your Churn Dash block fabrics, but not with each other within the color group. Study the photos of my quilts HERE, and my fabric pull above to see what I mean. Also, the more variety, the better, so this is a good chance to use up lots of little scraps.
There are two colors that I would NOT recommend using . . .
- White. Even if you did an assortment of white-on-white prints, I think they would all blend together too much and you would not get the effect of the block shape, making all your intense piecing completely un-worthwhile.
- Black. I think blacks would all blend together too much as well, and the piecing would get lost. You don’t want to do all that work and have it not be noticeable!
Some of you have sent me photos of your fabric pulls to ask if you’re on the right track, and I’d be happy to help you figure it out, if you want to send me pictures, and we can discuss it. Just shoot me an email with the attachments at shelly@prairiemoonquilts.com.
Here is the proposed schedule for the sew-along. My plan is to post almost every week, and at least every other week. The check-in posts will be used to show progress (mine, and if you want to send in photos, I’ll share some of yours, too), and to answer questions and provide little tips and tricks you might need. The posts in between will be tutorials, and helpful assembly information. I’ll try to keep up and make each week a live link as we go, so you can click to any certain post from here as well.
April 4: Introductory information and getting set up for success
April 11: Begin cutting and sewing, making the blocks
April 20: Check-in, Week 3
April 25: Making partial blocks
May 4: Check-in, Week 5
May 12: Check-in, Week 6
May 16: Cutting the filler pieces
May 23: Section One, and using the templates
June 1: Check-in, Week 9
June 6: Section Two
June 20: Section Three, and swapping corners
July 6: Handling partial seams within a section
July 11: Check-in, Week 15
July 18: Section Four
July 25: Check-in, Week 17
August 1: Section Five
August 16: Section Six
August 30: Section Seven
September 13: Section Eight
September 26: Section Nine
October 3: Final Assembly
October 10: Wrap-up
This is, of course, subject to change as we go along, depending on how we’re doing, and what life throws at me in the meantime. But this gives us nearly six months to complete our tops, and if you need to take even longer, that’s OK, too. The posts won’t be going away.
I might sprinkle some give-aways in throughout the sew-along, too, if I come up with something exciting — you never know.
I think that’s all for now . . . Are you ready to make a Mad Dash??
This sounds fun – and I *hope* to be able to join in – if I can keep caught up with what I am doing at the moment!! Now to think about colours…
I need to pull some fabrics!