Hypersonic SAL | Week 1

Welcome to week 1 of my Hypersonic Sew Along! If you didn’t get the memo, don’t fret—there’s plenty of time for you to join in the fun.

If you’re not sure what a Sew Along is, let me explain. Each week, I will be posting helpful prompts here on the blog as we all work together to finish our own version of the Hypersonic Quilt. It’s a great way to stay connected, even though we are miles apart. We can share pictures on Facebook and Instagram and cheer each other on. If you’d like to join, make sure you

sign up for my email newsletter and get your copy of Hypersonic. There’s no cost to join, just the pattern and whatever fabric you’ve got!

There are three things on the list for this week:

Fabric Pull
Quilt Layout Coloring Pages
Order other Supplies

Let’s get started.

Fabric Pull!!

There’s nothing more exciting than a fabric pull. There is no limit to the possibilities! This might be my favorite part of the process…right after finishing.

I’m going to be using the glorious fabrics from Jennifer Sampou’s SKY collection for Robert Kauffman along with a few pieces of her Chalk & Charcoal collection…I don’t even have words for how gorgeous these are!

And, the best part? I actually chose these fabrics WITH Jennifer at QuiltCon (fangirl sigh)

If you want to get the exact same fabrics, I’ll list them below for you:

Sky Ombre:

Fog #336 |Sunburst #209 | Ocean #59 | Celestial #325

Chalk & Charcoal:

Zinc #339 | Tornado #431 | Breeze #390

Where to Purchase

If you’d like to use the same fabrics, you can get these beautiful fabrics online (stay home & stay safe!). OR forge your own path and get something totally different!

For my US quilters, Missouri Star Quilts has a good number of pieces from this collection as well as Fabric.com

For those of you in Canada, Watergirl Quilt Co. has every single piece from this collection (holy cow!) and they also sell my Hypersonic pattern (which is great if you don’t love instant downloads, because I’m unable to ship outside of the US at the moment)

There are some special considerations when combining my Hypersonic pattern along with gradient fabrics, so I’ll be giving you the heads up as we go, just in case you’re doing the same!

Now get those fabrics ordered and we’ll get to the next part of planning!

Up or Down?

But first…

A decision.

Are these silos, pointing to the sky, or are they raindrops going down the window pane? This is going to be your first design choice to make!

You’ll need to make this choice before cutting if you have any directional prints or if you care which way your gradient selections fade. I chose to orient my quilt like raindrops, and I wanted my gradients to be darkest at the bottom of each strip, so I had to do some careful planning as I cut!

Coloring Time!

Once you choose your orientation, make a copy or two of the coloring page found on Page 4 (you have my permission on this one!) Start coloring to get a feel for your layout options. I was surprised to find that I liked my second shot better, so make sure you do at least two options!

Gather your Supplies

It’s a pretty chill first week! Before we get into the depths of the project, it’s good to make sure that you’ve ordered all of your supplies, patterns, and helpful notions! Check out my list of suggestions and must-haves:

First, the things you definitely need:

A note on monofilament threads: I know that some of your hearts just dropped at the sight of working with invisible poly, but trust me here, it’s going to be OK! I’ve found that success very much depends on what brand you’re using. I suggest Superior Threads brand. If you’ve had success with another brand, then by all means, use that. But if you’ve not had good experience with monofilament, give Superior a try.

I suggest the clear spool for light fabrics and the black spool for dark fabrics.

Helpful (but not required)

A Note on Machine Accessories

It is really helpful if you have a quarter inch foot (or a foot that you can see the 1/4″ mark with) for this pattern. You’ll be stitching along a traced line, and using the foot to sew 1/4″ away from the line. I’ve found feet that happen to line up with my 1/4″ mark, and these work just fine!

Also, I like to use a straight stitch needle plate for straight stitches whenever I can. I find this especially helpful when sewing with the Wash-n-Gone stabilizer.

Again, neither of these are required, but they sure are helpful!

That’s it for the week! Now it’s time to kick back, relax, and maybe tweak your design after you step away from it for a bit.